By Jim Johnson
PoHo Contributor
Jim Johnson is the creator of The State of Sunshine blog.
Tonight, Major League Baseball is holding the 80th All Star Game in St. Louis. With the recent success of the Tampa Bay Rays, the question could be asked – when will St. Petersburg host the All Star Game?
Read the rest of this entry »
The now-rejected watefront ballpark; will St. Pete-Pinellas also be rejected?
And the other shoe drops. It was predictable after the outburst earlier this week from Tampa Bay Rays President Matt Silverman about poor attendance at the Phillies series that it was just setting the table for a St. Petersburg departure. Now, comes confirmation that it is very actively being considered.
The A Baseball Community, studying everything from new sites for a Rays stadium to how to boost ticket sales, now confirms that three of the five geographic areas it is analyzing are in Hillsborough County. The three are in Westshore, downtown Tampa and east of the city at/near the Florida State Fairgrounds. Those sites join mid-Pinellas County (the Feather Sound/Carillon area) and downtown St. Petersburg on the list of five regions under study.
The St. Petersburg Times reported: Read the rest of this entry »
By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.
As the winter of 2009 comes to a close, Floridians (and Americans) are being inundated with various news reports about the effects of the worst economic downturn in 26 (if not 75) years.
New stories emerge every day about how the economy is affecting people in a myriad number of ways, such as putting off non-urgent surgical procedures, or couples who have divorced staying together, or actually living in Shantytowns. More than 355,000 Floridians have lost their jobs in the last year, and more than half-million are collecting unemployment. And now one local state legislator wants those who apply for such benefits to not only swallow their pride, but also their dignity by submitting to random drug tests.
Yet, there are sectors of the economy that are doing okay, if not thriving.
One is professional sports.
Last Friday afternoon at Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater, at a few minutes before 3 p.m., with the mercury hitting 79 degrees on a picture perfect Chamber of Commerce day, the Philadelphia Phillies slugger Ryan Howard clobbered a two-run homer, and for the Philly fanatics, and everybody else with a pulse, the economic downturn was somebody else’s bad dream.
The defending World Series champions have been immune from the economic malaise. Attendance is up nearly 30 percent in Clearwater, and even higher for the American League champions in their first venture in Port Charlotte.
MLB.Com reports that the Tampa Bay Rays attendance in spring training is up a whopping 40 percent.
But elsewhere, there have been various reports about other teams struggling this March, particular teams who train in the Cactus League in Arizona.
USA Today reports that teams like the perennially popular Chicago Cubs are off 3,000 fans a game.
And in South Florida, the Palm Beach Post reports that the St. Louis Cardinals attendance is down 20 percent, and in Port St. Lucie, the February/March home of the New York Mets, occupancy is down 15 percent at the Hilton Garden Inn.
So the recession IS affecting pro baseball, right?
Uh, not exactly.
In a report submitted to the A Baseball Community task force that is working on a site and funding for a new MLB ballpark, the Tampa Bay Rays have ID’d their Top 7 sites and the pro’s and con’s of each.
The sites include:
The location at the No. 1 position is sure to enrage downtown St. Petersburg activists who fought against an earlier proposal to build a ballpark at the Progress Energy-sponsored location. POWW was formed to fight against the plan, and having won that initial battle, now is gathering signatures for a November referendum that would prohibit using the location for anything but a park.
Now before anyone gets too far off the chain, here are the caveats from Rays VP for ballpark building Michael Kalt in today’s TBO.com:
“We’re not prepared to say that one site is preferable to the other,” said Michael Kalt, Rays vice president for development and business affairs. “The sites themselves are just sites that have been mentioned in the public, and we don’t necessarily think it’s an exhaustive list.”
You can download Part 1 and Part 2 of the report, in .pdf format (Adobe Acrobat).
Turns out that President-Elect Barack Obama can still pack ‘em in post-election. His appearance Sunday on 60 Minutes netted the news show its highest ratings in nine years.
John Stewart continues his fine work this election season with this bit on candidates pandering to baseball fans in Florida and Pennsylvania. What looks like a clear win for McCain soon turns into a draw, and it’s all thanks to Sarah Palin.
We’re combining forces to bring you a more complete set of morning headlines in politics, media and pop culture. Joe Bardi’s Short List on the Daily Loaf and Wayne Garcia’s Morning Roundup in PoHo blog will now be combined, giving you even more news to start your day with.
Here’s a great idea. Too bad it’s illegal in Florida:
The McCain campaign is so desperate for something that works that it has Cindy out bashing Obama for voting against troop funding (something that her own husband did as well). Here’s today’s top political and media headlines from Tampa Bay, Florida and beyond. With the usual updated aggregatin’ in the box to the right, you betcha:
Today’s top political and media headlines from Tampa Bay, Florida and the world beyond. Updates in the aggregatin’ box to the right:
A fitting video of the arrival of Fay, a storm we in the CL Weathercenter 4000 find highly suspect. Stay dry, folks.
And in non-storm news:
Obama does a little social work, helping care for — and foster a sense of community in — a certain elderly gentleman. Have a good weekend everyone.
When is martial law permissible in the U.S.? For one Arkansas town, the answer is “right now!”
As USA Today debates drilling for oil off the coast, CNBC braces for $150-a-barrel oil this week. Hang on for the part where interviewee and “preeminent energy investment bankers” Matt Simmons mentions “the American nightmare.”
Enjoy your Fourth of July festivities everyone. I’m off next week, but PoHo will be back on Monday.
Here’s your first look at the new, unfortunately-titled Bond movie, Quantum of Solace:
Breaking news: John McCain is “aware” of both the Internet and computers. He doesn’t use them, silly. He just knows they exist — and that should be good enough for you.
Facing strong criticism and opposition to their plans for a $450 million waterfront ballpark, Tampa Bay Rays executives have done just what I lauded them a few 
weeks ago for not doing: They’ve hired a high-powered lobbyist, Ed Armstrong of Clearwater.
The Times reports:
Clearwater land use attorney Ed Armstrong joined the Rays’ lineup in May — not because the team needed legal work, but because it needed access.
Armstrong, 51, has contributed both cash and savvy advice to help elect most of the seven-member commission. He counsels commissioners on everything from policy to media relations, and he represents developers before them.
“There is nobody that has more influence than Ed Armstrong when it comes to changing public policy,” St. Petersburg City Council member Karl Nurse said.
Armstrong demurs, but Nurse is right. During my years as a political consultant (1996-2004), I worked on many campaigns with Armstrong, and nobody is better connected at the Pinellas County Commission and Clearwater City Hall than Armstrong. When the Church of Scientology needed political counsel, it hired Armstrong. That’s the kind of ability he brings to any issue.
The team says it was referred to Armstrong:
County Commissioner Ken Welch was one of several people who suggested the Rays consider hiring Armstrong, according to the team.
Welch said he watched with dismay last month as team executives unveiled a financing plan for a new waterfront ballpark to the St. Petersburg City Council. The Rays were clumsy, Welch thought, in trying to pull the levers of power.
Afterward, Welch called the team. Get serious and talk to the right players, he said, or you’re done. And another thing: you could use an Ed Armstrong.
The next day, May 16, the Rays called Armstrong.
The Rays had mishandled the county commission so poorly in this process that when I reached Welch the day after the Rays unveiled their financial plan in front of the St. Pete City Council, Welch told me that the team didn’t even give him the info packet they handed to the press at the event, which he alone attended from the county commission. Welch said he was forced to download the plan from this blog and had to brief his colleagues at a workshop that night from notes he took.
He wasn’t happy about it.
Now, with Armstrong lobbying the County Commission and the St. Pete Times editorial board lobbying pro bono at the City Council, here is what is likely to happen: The Tourist Development Council will vote Thursday against the idea of extending the fourth cent of the county’s tourist (hotel bed) tax to allow the Rays to build their stadium. The TDC is dominated by beach interests who were not happy when the Trop was built, and they would rather see the tourist tax funds go to marketing our beach destinations and for beach renourishment. County commissioners, buoyed with reasoning supplied by Armstrong, will grudgingly overturn the TDC recommendation, on the basis of giving St. Petersburg voters a chance to vote and the rationale that the fourth cent is already committed to the Rays through 2016, so it isn’t like money is being lost by the beaches any time soon.
That will pave the way (just as the carpet-bombing editorials will) for the St. Petersburg City Council to vote either 7-1 or 6-2 to put the Rays proposal on the ballot in November, again under the theory that this is too important a decision not the let the voters directly participate in it. Helping that vote along with be the — surprise, surprise, surprise! — final recommendation from Mayor Rick Baker that this is a great thing for the city of St. Petersburg, where the sun always shines or the newspaper is given away free for the folks hanging out on the green benches.
There’s still time to attend the St. Petersburg City Council session on the Rays. Council members announced this morning that it would hear the matter starting at 1:15 p.m.
Oh, and anyone wondering just how far in the tank for the Rays the Times would be, look no further than today’s editorial page for a slap-down of “upstart” Councilman Karl Nurse, who wants to put a competing referendum on the ballot with the Rays boondoggle. (Full disclosure: Before joining CL, I was a consultant to Nurse’s unsuccessful bid for mayor against Rick Baker.)
I’m still waiting for the edit board’s take on the Times extensive marketing/sponsorship relationships with the Rays and how that impacts the newspaper’s objectivity and/or credibility.
And so we reach the end of what will surely be the wildest primary contest of my lifetime.
Thank God Wolf Blitzer is there to make sense of it all.
With a crucial St. Pete City Council vote coming up Thursday, the Rays have responded to a litany of city administration concerns with a lengthy memo (available as a download on the Times‘ new ballpark blog) it hopes will clear things up.
Like mud.
In a nutshell:
So, does that satisfy your questions and concerns?
Bonus cuts: The Rays ask local businesses to be their ambassadors to make this thing happen (TBBJ); NAACP, Urban League back stadium plan (TBBJ); Polling doesn’t go Rays way (Drays blog); DEP: Not so fast on redeveloping the Trop … (Troxler on sptimes.com)
See Wayne Garcia, Creative Loafing’s Political Whore, any minute now on Studio 10, the morning show on Tampa Bay’s 10/ WTSP TV. He’ll be talking Rays, Republicans and other endangered species with host Holley Sinn.
Substitute the word “Rays” for the word “Marlins” in this Michael Mayo column and you get the exact same baseball apathy that exists here in Tampa Bay. So I wonder, is Florida just not a baseball state? Despite spring training locations dotting the peninsula? Do we have too many leisure choices and not enough time or money for the grand old game?
Mayo writes that despite the Marlins leading their division:
… I still haven’t gone to a game yet.
If I didn’t have a 2-year-old daughter, it might be different. But as of now, taking the family out to a ballgame just doesn’t make logistical or economic sense. My girl wouldn’t last more than 3 innings in a stadium environment, so baseball isn’t on our activity radar.
I suppose I could to a game on a boys’ night out, but I’d rather just stay home and watch it on the tube. I don’t know what they’re getting for parking now, and $10 beers just don’t appeal to me.
What about you? Have you been to any Marlins games this season? Has your thinking changed since March? Will you eventually succumb to a team’s lure if they’re successful enough? Or is there no amount of winning that makes you want to endure the hassles and expense of a big-league ballgame?
The St. Pete Times editorial pages this Sunday asked that very question, in a way that tips their hand in supporting a new ballpark for the team, a $450 million taxpayer-subsidized waterfront facility:
The loss of team and stadium jobs and the loss of 81 game days and the corresponding hotel and restaurant use can be computed into fairly reliable economic numbers. What is much harder to measure is the extent to which the team is a factor in other business decisions that affect St. Petersburg and Pinellas and in the overall quality life of the entire area. The viability of existing and new hotels would most certainly be affected. But could the loss of the team lead to lost opportunities in business relocations? Could it shake the faith of banks that provide the capital for corporate growth?
So I ask the question that the Times does: What would happen if the Rays left town?
Let’s examine the team’s impact so far, or in other words, what will we get for the $323 million that the Trop and the team will cost us through 2016. The Times editorial begins this way:
A Major League Baseball team, one former St. Petersburg official said nearly two decades ago, would “light the tail on the rocket.”
The newspaper says determining the team’s role in St. Pete’s current state is less relevant than looking forward. But seriously, the team’s impact in our region was oversold from day one and remains overstated. It did not light the tail on the rocket; it didn’t put St. Pete on the map (much to the chagrin of city leaders, the team retains its geographic name as “Tampa Bay” and some broadcasters shorten it to Tampa); its impact on the larger region is even more dubious. It did not create an economic ripple in Downtown West; the few sports bars that were opened as a result, most notably Ferg’s, are lonely outposts for the most part in the immediate neighborhood.
So if the past is any indicator of the future, baseball is not going to “transform” St. Pete into America’s Next Great City.
The team has never directly threatened to leave, but the message has been delivered by two proxies: business leader Steve Raymund and Times sports columnist John Romano, the latter’s none-too-subtle channeling for the Rays ownership headlined “Rays will get their new stadium — somewhere.”
Since the Times has asked, here’s one scenario of what happens if the team leaves:
In this scenario, the city grows its own longlasting jobs, not just the 18-month construction job benefit the Rays tout. In this scenario, downtown St. Pete continues to be an eclectic affordable destination for dining, entertaining and the arts, something that downtown Tampa can’t claim. And the city gets a veritable windfall by cutting the team — and its subsidies — loose. St. Pete and Pinellas County would have to continue to pay off the bonds that were used to build the Trop through 2016, but it already has that burden and can’t do anything about it.
Bonus cuts: The Rays and the city’s secrecy; our Q&A with the Rays’ Silverman and Kalt; PoHo blog on the Trop redevelopment plans; download the Rays’ financial proposal and analysis.
(photo by Ben Ostrowsky)
On the upside, the Rays haven’t trotted out a phalanx of lobbyists and spinmeisters in the team’s effort to win public approval for a new $450 million waterfront ballpark. They get brownie points for that. On the downside, for them at least, they are getting creamed so far.
Last night, nearly 600 people — mostly opponents — showed up to a public forum in St. Petersburg to speak about the proposal. This came after a workshop session of the City Council at which even some of the council members who seemed open to the idea initially — mainly Jamie Bennett — are starting to get testy with the ball team.
Also this week, preservationists weighed in on the plan with a big negatory, good buddy. This from St. Petersburg Preservation:
Over the years significant portions of our open Waterfront Park land have been lost as buildings and parking areas were allowed to encroach into the Waterfront Park. While these encroachments were for uses perceived at the time to benefit the public, cumulatively they have significantly eroded our downtown waterfront open green space. The construction of the proposed stadium would constitute the largest encroachment on the Waterfront Park. It also sets a negative precedent for perhaps even larger projects at some future date.
… The mass and scale of the proposed waterfront stadium is far beyond what may be reasonably accommodated at the Waterfront Park site. The scale of the project is such that it would overpower and interfere with other nearby historic park amenities and residential areas. … We recommend the Rays Owners consider alternative sites, or further enhance the current stadium.
Just posted the results of the St. Pete City Council meeting over at Blurbex. Check out the details there and see what the Rays’ Matt Silverman (at the mic) and Michael Kalt (right) told Mayor Baker and the council members.
Earlier this week, we ran a graphic that opponents to the new Rays’ waterfront ballpark had doctored up to illustrate just how large they contend the Tampa Bay Rays’ retractable sail-like fabric roof will be, claiming it will block views from downtown condos and offices. The sail was highlighted in a yellow that came out in our print newspaper more yellow-green. While I thought it was clear that the Rays aren’t proposing a yellow canopy, and that it was just for the effect of highlighting the size of the roof, we weren’t precise about that and didn’t have room to print some other context for the roof design disagreement. The Rays’ senior VP on the project, Michael Kalt, wrote to clarify:
The rendering of the roof you published is patently misleading. We are talking about a transparent fabric that will be deployed, at most, for a few hours a day less than 90 days a year.
I wrote back to mention that I remembered hearing the Rays describe the fabric as not entirely transparent, that it has to have some opacity in order to block the sunlight and resulting heat and cool the open-air stadium in the Tampa Bay summer.
We are working with HOK to include images of the roof opening and closing in the virtual tour. It should take a few weeks. But your recollection is correct. We are trying to make it as transparent as possible while still ensuring that it reflects or diffuses heat rather than absorbs it (since most of our games will be in the evening, shade is somewhat less of an issue that reflectivity). This should result in a largely transparent fabric, and certainly not anything close to that lemon-yellow cartoon that you published.
In any event, the salient fact isn’t really the roof material. It’s that the roof itself will only be deployed a small fraction of the time: not at all for half the year (i.e., during the offseason), only 81-90 days during the other half of the year (i.e., during the baseball season), and even on those days, only for a few hours. That’s not to dismiss the fact that there will be some impact to waterfront views from a couple of adjoining properties during those hours. But we should be honest about the extent and duration of that impact.
A very fair point and one that did not fit into our cutlines in the newspaper. We should have done a better job describing it in the story, however.
Opponents make the point that the highest point of the sail is approximately 30 stories high, while the point where the sail attaches to the stadium seating structure is about 13 stories high. Members of the Preserve our Wallets and Waterfronts said they felt that Rays’ renderings downplayed the size and scope of the sail roof and showed it as being transparent (it is pictured in the open position so the sail fabric is not visible in any rendering); The Rays insist they have done no such thing, that they’ve always been open about how long the sail would be closed and open and its size, as demonstrated by the fact that they included the outlines of it in their renderings.
You be the judge; here’s the Rays’ renderings showing the roof and its outlines (images courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays/HOK):
And here is the opponents’ rendering of the roof with the sail fabric up:
From the Creative Loafing issue hitting newsstands today:
‘Project Rebirth’
Public records reveal the active involvement of city officials in the Rays efforts for almost two years.
The seeds for a new waterfront ballpark and a redeveloped Tropicana Field site, the linchpins of the Tampa Bay Rays’ ambitious $1 billion remake of downtown St. Petersburg, were sown as far back as two years ago — twice as long as previously known or reported.
A review of city public records by Creative Loafing shows that discussions between the city and the team about economic redevelopment at or around Tropicana Field go back to at least March 2006, shortly after the arrival of the Rays’ point person on new stadium, Senior Vice President Michael Kalt.
Those discussions — which included gathering data about government financial incentives, adjacent properties and values, and potential environmental issues on those neighboring lands — were not directly part of a plan for a new ballpark, Kalt said in an interview with CL on Friday.
They did, however, form the foundation of the Rays current proposal, a ambitious $1 billion plan for a new waterfront, open-air ballpark at the site of Al Lang Field and a retail-housing-parks redevelopment of Tropicana Field. And those preliminary investigations — aided by city workers who gathered lots of data for the Rays — progressed to the point that by October 2006, St. Petersburg economic development and real estate officials were meeting with the Rays and their ballpark architect, HOK.
It wasn’t until March 2007, however, that the Rays formally requested their discussions about “Project Rebirth†— as city officials dubbed it, to the chagrin of the Rays — be confidential under a loophole in the state’s public records law that allows some public-private business discussions to be kept secret. The plan became public on Nov. 9, after it was leaked to the St. Petersburg Times.
Some civic leaders and opponents of the Rays’ proposal decry the secrecy, especially since it meant city officials kept the public in the dark during discussions about future uses for Al Lang Field and for the duration of the fall 2007 City Council elections.
(image courtesy of Skip Milos / Tampa Bay Rays)
My piece examining the Tampa Bay Rays new stadium proposal is on the streets and on our website:
I have a buddy who has been a baseball nut for decades, who knows the sport inside and out, a season ticket holder, a true fan. He’s also a successful business owner and civic leader. Two weeks ago, he sent me 12 reasons why the Rays won’t get a new stadium.
Twelve, count ‘em, 12. He didn’t even stop at 10. Surely it couldn’t be that bad? The Tampa Bay Rays’ new ballpark and vision for Downtown West (the new name for the Tropicana Field site if it is torn down) is ambitious and surprising and smart and visionary. It gives us a chance to revisit St. Pete’s biggest mistake — building a subpar indoor baseball stadium on spec, without a team to play in it, without the support of MLB, to the indignation of residents and beach businesses that saw tourist taxes sapped away to pay for it.
Finally: a remedy for one of St. Pete’s biggest municipal blunders.
But, unfortunately, my buddy may be right.
Where was this plan 20 years ago? Where was this ownership group 20 years ago? And why not put a winning team on the field before considering asking voters for their taxes to continue to chase the dream of baseball economic development?
I also gave the Rays their say, and they make a strong case for their vision of how a new stadium and redeveloped Trop site would work. Read excerpts of it here. The larger audio interview is also available.
