In the most recent ploy to lure the Montreal Expos to the District, Mayor Anthony Williams has promised Major League Baseball a stadium with a nearly $400 million price tag. However, it remains unclear where this money would come from. Williams has said that the city can fully finance the construction of the stadium, yet he has not shared the details with the D.C. Council. While bringing professional baseball to the District is an intriguing idea, the approximately $400 million cost, to be financed by unknown means, makes the concept unappealing.
The current proposal by Williams offers a city-funded stadium at one of several locations, at varying costs, depending on which site is selected. The potential sites include a location at North Capitol Street and New York Avenue, a spot along the Anacostia River near South Capitol Street, near RFK stadium, or along I-395 on the Southwest waterfront. Currently, the RFK option is the least expensive, but also the least desirable because of its distance from downtown.
Bringing a Major League Baseball team to the Washington Metropolitan Area would undoubtedly have its benefits. However, paying for it completely with District money is absurd. With a city that has a decaying school system, a lack of public health care facilities, and other civic needs remaining unmet, the added prestige of a $400 million baseball stadium weighs poorly against the fundamental benefits lost to citizens.
And even if Williams’ current offer is successful, there’s no guarantee that the new stadium would recuscitate the community as the mayor claims. In the past, new stadiums have pepped up city centers in San Francisco with former Pac-Bell Park, now SBC Park. In Washington, immediate gentrification and economic development followed the opening of the MCI Center which hosts the Wizards, Capitals, and our own Hoyas for basketball. But similar efforts have had lackluster results with the New Comiskey Park on Chicago’s south side.
Perhaps the best comparison to be drawn is with the current situation with the very team D.C. is trying to bring in: the Montreal Expos. The city of Montreal used debt financing to build Olympic Stadium, the home of the Expos. 28 years after the stadium was unveiled for the 1976 Olympics, the park is in disrepair while the city continues to pay heavy installments on the originial debt-financing contract which it agreed to in building the stadium.
The dilemma that Major League Baseball present to the District is that it purports to want candidate cities to commit to publicly financing a stadium. Not meeting that provision would put the District at a significant disadvantage in this scheme. But the D.C. Council will not provide funding until Major League Baseball officials award the District a team. Council members are not willing to outlay such money at this point. According to the Washington Post, Ward 4 Council member Adrian Fenty said, “people don’t support spending lots of public dollars on a baseball stadium. It’s not going to happen. New libraries and rec centers, but not a new baseball stadium.”
In the past few weeks, Williams continues to make more and more sublime offers to Major League Baseball, now including complete stadium financing to meet the current demands from Commisioner Bud Selig. While Washington ups their ante, the relocation committee has added multiple alternate sites either to leverage further concessions from the District or to draw out the relocation process until 2006. That year, the current collective bargaining agreement expires and the league will probably try to eliminate the Expos.
Behind everything sits Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, a traditional baseball tycoon of the old school who has consistently claimed that a team in Washington would erode his already struggling market share and would cause his franchise to fold.
Angelos has consistently ignored two factors that seem evident to supporters of D.C. baseball: First, the hour-long drive from Washington to Baltimore keeps away all but the most blue-blooded Orioles fans from occasional games, let alone a season’s worth of tickets. Second, the fact that Baltimore has struggled is more an indication of their faulty front-office management, which until the past winter was submerged under multi-million dollar contracts to retired players and injured talent. What Baltimore wants is a winning team, and if Angelos has one, he wouldn’t have to worry about Washington taking away part of te Orioles market share
Williams should only offer Major League Baseball what the city can afford-$400 million is too much. If the D.C. Metro area is so attractive a location, then baseball officials should work with the city to finance this, without placing the entire burden on the already cash-strapped D.C. taxpayers.
