Check out Center City Partners honcho Michael Smith still spinning a taxpayer subsidized Charlotte Knights baseball park, claiming it will “bring affordable family entertainment over a lot of Charlotte summer nights.”
Really?
Recall the “premium pricing” assumptions the Bobcats took Uptown — 50 to 75 percent ticket price hikes that were completely unsupportable in the local marketplace. The Knights have made noises about an “upscale experience” but otherwise kept pricing for the proposed stadium very close to the vest. Suffice it to say that any upward creep in the current $13 to $8 single-game price point — itself up $1 over the previous year — will zap the affordability angle.
The problem is the exploding price of the stadium demands a bigger revenue stream in order to get the $60m. project off the ground. This explains why Parks Helms is off scurrying around promising God knows what to God knows whom in exchange for shouldering some of the cost. One crazed possibility — roping CMS and/or Parks & Rec into the mix in exchange for use of the facility.
Certainly private-sector financing will be hard to come by for the team in the foreseeable future — which is exactly where we started this gambit. The Knights could not — and still cannot — afford to build themselves a new stadium Uptown.
