Still no word on who Charlotte Knights owner Don Beaver has lined up to contribute an additional $17 million towards a $34 million baseball park in Third Ward. Both Charlotte Center City Partners chief Michael Smith and Mecklenburg County Commission chairman Parks Helms thought they knew something about the deal. Turns out not:
Until now, the Knights had not committed to pay the full cost of an uptown stadium, estimated at $34 million. But, said majority owner Don Beaver, they hadn’t been this close to reality before. He now plans to raise all the money privately.
Smith and Helms say the Knights have an anonymous investor who is helping. But when asked by the Observer, Beaver denied that there were any new investors in either the team or the stadium.
Hmmm, sounds a little sketchy. With so much public land involved in this deal the financing will have to be fleshed out more before moving forward.
But if nothing else, the sudden move away from direct public funding of a baseball park proves that saying “no” to public development subsidies can sometimes work wonders for “discovering” private investors. Even mystery ones.
