The Winston-Salem Journal takes a lengthy look at the “second most-expensive single-A stadium built in the U.S. in the past 10 years,” aka the new taxpayer-subsidized downtown stadium, which is now coming in at a cool $38 million.
A couple of things jump out at me. For starters, the Journal points out something we’ve known the whole time — that Winston-Salem Dash owner Billy Prim can more than afford to pay for $16 million in upgrades, considering the fact that he sold Blue Rhino for $343 million.
The Journal also falls back on a technique it’s used over and over again: using the success of Greensboro’s New Bridge Bank Park as a model:
Winston-Salem city officials and downtown businesses are hoping the stadium will draw more people — and their wallets — downtown.
Neighboring Greensboro has found that to be the case.
Greensboro’s baseball stadium, a 5,300-seat park that cost $21.5 million, has enticed people who previously had not been comfortable coming downtown, said Helen Cauthen, the vice president of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance.
“For a long time we struggled to get people downtown,” Cauthen said. “And the ballpark has helped us attract young people for ‘thirsty Thursday’ and lots and lots of families come down with their kids … really, what I think is key is you have something fun to do downtown, you’re going to draw the people. And then people get comfortable coming downtown, they think about coming downtown and it really just spirals positively.”
That doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, drawing people to existing downtown businesses is part of the equation, but the big sell is potential development around the stadium, which has been practically nonexistent around Greensboro’s stadium, with not a lot of hope in sight with the struggling economy. I live down the street from New Bridge, so I have a vested interest in seeing good quality development spring up. But it’s just not happening.
So Winston-Salem residents need to be skeptical when the stadium is sold as an economic development tool. Scroll the comments beneath the Journal article and you’ll note that many residents are expressing such skepticism.
