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Economic Doubts Bedevil Stadium

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By CARLOS MONCADA, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 24, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - Ed Mlotkowski had high hopes when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays began playing baseball in Tropicana Field in 1998.

The owner of the Extra Innings Ballpark Cafe figured the city's Major League Baseball franchise would attract big crowds and boost revenue for him and other business owners around the stadium.

Yet baseball never sparked the kind of economic renaissance that many property and business owners had hoped for in the commercially bleak area west of downtown.

Now, questions are emerging over what financial benefit the Rays would bring to the other side of downtown if the team helps build a $450 million waterfront ballpark there by 2012.

The plan also calls for the sale and redevelopment of the Rays' existing home at Tropicana Field, which the team expects will provide the biggest share of the necessary revenue.

Many people who have studied the question, though, say the economic impact of professional sports teams often does not justify the public dollars invested.

Even in cities recognized as having successful downtown revitalization related to new stadiums, the financial benefit to the public is questionable, said Philip Porter, an economics professor at the University of South Florida.

"It's going to do what the last stadium did for the local economy: not much," Porter said.

Downtown boosters say a 35,000-seat, open-air stadium at Al Lang Field, the longtime spring training home the Rays will vacate next year, could create a synergy with other downtown venues and bring in more visitors.

The 10-acre site is across from the renovated Mahaffey Theater and the future home of the Salvador Dali Museum, the city's premier cultural attraction.

"Downtown St. Petersburg is doing well, but you always want other reasons for folks to come into your community," said John T. Long III, president of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce. "That's what all downtowns are looking for."

Long, who grew up in Baltimore, pointed for comparison to Camden Yards, the ballpark opened by the Orioles in 1992 as part of a broader renaissance of the city's downtown.

Camden Yards and, later, a stadium for the NFL's Ravens are among a dozen projects that sprang from a plan dating to 1955 for developing the Inner Harbor, a seaside commercial district that had fallen to ruin. Other features now include a convention center, trade center, science center, maritime and children's museums, and an aquarium.

"Stadiums are lousy engines for redevelopment," USF's Porter said. "You look at Baltimore and you say, 'Look at how they built that area around the harbor there.' But the area built itself."

Most baseball stadiums are located in impoverished parts of town and do little to revitalize the surrounding area, he said.

"They don't generate business for restaurants and bars because they only play for 81 games a year."

What slows the spinoff benefits from Tropicana Field are factors including lower-than-projected Rays attendance and a stadium designed to keep people's time and money.

"It's a monopoly, in a sense," said Frank Blandford, a commercial real estate broker with Tourtelot Bros. Inc. who worked with several potential investors in the west downtown area.

"They have everything inside the stadium, and the idea of people drifting around the perimeter having a good time at a bar or something never took off."

Mlotkowski, 53, the Extra Innings restaurant owner who also owns Boomerz music club in Seminole, said St. Petersburg needs to use Tropicana Field more.

"I envisioned them doing something more with that location, like they do at the St. Pete Times Forum," he said. "They have a lot of other things going on other than hockey. Just about every week there's something."

A new waterfront ballpark won't become the destination the Rays envision unless the team starts winning more games, Mlotkowski said.

"I don't think it will help attendance at all if they're going to put the same product out there," he said, using the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Raymond James Stadium for comparison.

"The Bucs aren't filling the stadium because we built them a new stadium. If we still had the same old tangerine Bucs in a brand new stadium, I don't think we'd be selling it out."

The Rays are scheduled to unveil details and renderings of the waterfront ballpark and the redevelopment of Tropicana Field in a conference 3 p.m. Wednesday at Al Lang Field. Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to attend.

"If you're asking me why all the noise, it's pure hype to get the taxpayers to pay for the cost of the team's venue," Porter said.

In the so-called Dome District along Central Avenue, near Tropicana Field, some business people are musing over alternatives to baseball as an economic stimulus for the 70-plus-acre Tropicana Field site. They're intrigued by the idea of residential and commercial uses there.

"I really believe in the long-term we'll be in better shape," said Mark Ferguson, whose Ferg's Sports Bar is a stone's throw from Tropicana Field.

"Where do you have that many acres left to build in Pinellas County?" he asked. "We have 81 home games right now. But we could have 6,000 to 10,000 people next door every day of the week."

Several residential and retail projects are built or planned in the Dome District, despite block after block of empty storefronts and new condominium units.

"I think that area is turning the corner," said Rick Mussett, St. Petersburg's economic development administrator. "There's definitely more upside than downside."

Reporter Carlos Moncada can be reached at (727) 451-2333 or cmoncada@tampatrib.com.

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