Charlotte Knights AAA Ballpark in Third Ward

[HopHead]

I for one think that it just adds another thing to do in uptown. So many times we have heard the argument that there's nothing to do besides go to bars and get drunk (which I highly disagree with). While it may not appeal to everyone in Charlotte, having baseball in uptown is another entertainment option in Charlotte for residents and vistors alike. I would never make the trek down to Fort Mill to see a ball game, but having the stadium within a short distance of my place I will without a doubt be a frequent attendee. It also provides opportunties for hosting amateur and high school/college tournaments, which can be a money maker for the city... something that we will see with the ACC and NCAA Men's Regional tournament at BA this year.

As far as Seattle goes, they are just trying to push the team out of town. The previous owner sold the team to a group of Oklahoma business men who's only intention is to really move the team to OKC. The city is more in tune with the Seahawks and Mariners than the Sonics and have been that way for several years. They also aren't exactly a Cleveland, NY or Chicago when it comes to being a diehard sports town. Those places would fight tooth and nail to keep their teams.

[Charlotte_native]

I think the UrbanPlanet reader has to ask again what good does a baseball stadium, or for that matter any single use sports venue, do for making downtown Charlotte an interesting city that people will want to visit and live in, I will still contend there are many many better uses for the land than what is proposed.

The argument now has devolved into a legal one over which group of investors will make money off this public land. At face value, it doesn't sound like its going to do much for the common person.

I can't argue that there are or aren't better uses or other uses for the land. With any parcel there are certainly a list of uses that we could come up with -- some please one group, others pleases another. I personally would really like to see this current plan happen for the following reasons:

1) It will add another facet to the various available activities downtown. This includes the park and the baseball stadium. The park will be used for various events, tailgating, festivals, etc, in addition to the use by the residents and office workers nearby. I used to live across from Freedom Park and those of us that lived nearby used it all the time as did many who drove from further away. A true urban park with residences, hotels, and offices all around it will be quite vibrant and fill a void we currently have.

2) The baseball option, as noted by many others, will create activity 70 nights a year plus any other events that will be added to the calendar. Bobcats Arena has shown that, though built for basketball, many other events take place that bring in a huge variety of people: Christian something or other national event that was there for a couple nights, Hannah Montana, Hockey, rodeo's, etc. It also brought us the CIAA tourney and now the ACC tourney. Great stuff, lots of poeple out and about, and lots of people from out of town who otherwise might never come to Charlotte. I can see the argument about a single use facility when it comes to BofA Stadium -- football only has a handful of home games and few other events need a space that large. But basketball and baseball are different, their facilities are used by the teams far more often and are useful for many other events as well.

3) People like me and many other friends and neighbors plan on going to games when they plan in town. Nothing against Fort Mill, but I am not a baseball fan so making a drive down there to watch something I don't care about won't and hasn't happened. Walking 3 or 4 blocks, meeting up with friends to sit outside on a nice afternoon with cheap tickets, we'll do it all the time. It likely won't be about the game but the fun and the event. Same reason a bunch of us go to see hockey now. I don't follow the team or really care about hockey, but its cheap and fun and easy to get to.

4) Asking what a facility like this will do to make the city interesting or a place to visit - who knows how many people would never have visited or seen uptown Charlotte if they hadn't come to a football game, basketball game, concert or other event in these facilities. This includes people who live in the city but don't live near uptown or venture near uptown as well as those who travel from further away to see their team visit us here and play. This includes pro and college events. Last month it was great to see thousands of people with UCONN and Connecticut jerseys and hats all over the city for the Wake Forest vs. UCONN bowl game. Many seemed to have come 4 or 5 days in advance of game day. Minor leage baseball likely won't bring many from out of town, but the other venues certainly do. I think there were more Cowboys fans in Charlotte their last game than Panther fans. One has to wonder how many people who come to town for a convention or other reason might decide a cheap night at the ballpark would be fun -- there is that *something to do* that out of town folks always want to know about.

I know quite a few people these days who get concert or game tickets and then plan a whole day and night downtown around it.

[Charlotte_native]

The argument now has devolved into a legal one over which group of investors will make money off this public land. At face value, it doesn't sound like its going to do much for the common person.

I don't think it is really all about developers making money *off* public land. They already own land and could build and make money there. We are getting public land in one place in exchange for land in another -- the public will still have land so they aren't really making money from the public part. As I see it these parcels are just being traded so better and smarter development will take place in areas that many agree are superior to where each of these parties currently has land. Aren't we always saying the city should plan better and do things in a more sensible way?

This exchange will take a dead park that no one lives near and add residential to what is definitely a dead space (especially at night). New public space (small) will be in 2nd Ward as will be affordable housing and market rate housing. I think this does quite a bit for the common person.

[staffer]

Good read. I'm anxious to see what 5 major corporations will provide sponsorship. Most definitely BofA and/or Wachovia will I assume. I get a funny feeling we will see a corporate name on the stadium before we do at Bobcats Arena.

The history of the site has Duke Power written all over it. Southern Power (Duke's original name) capitalized Piedmont Traction (later Piedmont and Northern RR) which acquired the site in 1911 and held it until 1969. William States Lee (The Elder) managed the RR and the property on behalf of the Duke interests for decades.

Edited January 24, 2008 by staffer

[ChesterCopperPot]

Regardless of what Reese and his supporters are doing VS what the CCCP and their supporters are doing for their version, I think the UrbanPlanet reader has to ask again what good does a baseball stadium, or for that matter any single use sports venue, do for making downtown Charlotte an interesting city that people will want to visit and live in, I will still contend there are many many better uses for the land than what is proposed.

The argument now has devolved into a legal one over which group of investors will make money off this public land. At face value, it doesn't sound like its going to do much for the common person. While we ponder over this here, Seattle, IMO a much more progressive city, has decided that sports teams don't do much for a city. More here

Seattle has SafeCo field for the Mariners, which I believe was mostly paid for by the city, and happens to be the most expensive "built for 1 team" stadium in North America. They also recently built Qwest field, which I believe was completely publicly financed. I don't blame them for not wanting to pay for an NBA arena, but that's not their track record.

I think the stadium will be highly popular in 3rd Ward. In addition to minor league baseball and a couple of concert events, maybe the city will use it for other events. Hopefully they will allow local High School baseball/Softball tournaments as well.

[staffer]

I think the stadium will be highly popular in 3rd Ward. In addition to minor league baseball and a couple of concert events, maybe the city will use it for other events. Hopefully they will allow local High School baseball/Softball tournaments as well.

4th of July fireworks, I would hope.

[Spartan]

The key point of that article about Seattle that is most relevant to Charlotte is at the end. Oklahoma City wants to pay for the Sonics because it will add something to their city. OKC, much like Charlotte, is not a major metropolitan area at the scale of Seattle. In Seattle, people will take their entertainment dollars elsewhere in the city because there are other pro-sports teams, and there are no other major US cities within a days drive (maybe Portland).

Charlotte, IMO, is not comparable to Seattle when it comes to sports. Here you have to compete with Carolina collegiate loyalties like NC State, Clemson, USC, Wake Forest, Duke, Appalachian State, ECU, UNC, etc, plus loyalties to the other cities that most people in this city come from (many of which are northern cities that have pro teams). Not to mention the proximity to Atlanta, which has all the pro sports you could want. Charlotteans can probably continue to exist without a baseball team and not loose any sleep over it, but I think its important for Charlotte to have this layer of activity.

[HopHead]

I had a chance to listen to this interview as well. I would have less of a problem with him if he was actually part of some local group of business leaders, that could indicate their financial backing to this endevour. I feel like he totally just danced around the questions and couldn't really indicate that he had any other support. That one piece of land he wants will not be Charlotte's one and only chance at landing an MLB team. He said that if we build the Knights stadium in uptown, it will set Charlotte's chance back 10 years. Well, in all honesty, that's about what Charlotte needs. At least another 10 years, given our growth rate, to be able to feasibly support one.

[grodney]

I think the UrbanPlanet reader has to ask again what good does a baseball stadium, or for that matter any single use sports venue, do for making downtown Charlotte an interesting city that people will want to visit and live in.

For me, this is easy. I love having the Knights in Fort Mill, and I will love having them uptown. Sure, I only go to a couple games a year, but what a wonderful inexpensive thing to do. I can't wait for my wife and daughters to take the light-rail to meet me uptown for afternoon game. Or for all of us to take it up on a Saturday evening. For the "cheap entertainment" value, an attractive minor league venue is way more interesting to me than a major league one.

However, one of my steadfast rules is to disassociate myself and my personal interests from the issue at hand. In other words, don't look at what's better for ME, but what makes the most sense for the big picture, when looked at objectively.

And still, trying to be as objective as possible, I think a minor league uptown baseball stadium adds real value toward making Charlotte an interesting city in which to live. To visit? Eh, probably not. But from the standpoint of the family-with-youngish-kids demographic, as well as from the vibrant-uptown image, and even for corporate entertainment, I think it's a big win.

(I just re-read monsoon's statement. The "downtown" before Charlotte is throwing me. Are you asking about living in and visiting downtown? Or Charlotte as a whole? My answer above was for Charlotte as a whole. If you're talking specifically about downtown, then my answer is opposite: It does very little (by comparison) to make people want to actually live downtown, but it would be a huge draw to visit uptown.)

[Raintree21]

Besides Knights games (~70 nights a year), the facility could be used for:

CMS tournament/championship games

CMS games of the week (like they do for football at Memorial Stadium)

Charlotte private schools

ACC tournament

Does the CIAA have a tournament?

NCAA tournament

NCAA exhibition games

MLB exhibition games

4th of July fireworks

NYE fireworks

Could the field be reconfigured for events like soccer so the minor league teams could hold their games there? Same holds for the Latino game they held at BOA stadium...

Birthday parties/tours

By the way, CMS, NCAA, and MLB all play on slightly off calendars so the potential for games goes from just April-September for the Knights to February-October potentially if you include all the other leagues.

-------------------

IMO, Duke Energy will never have the naming rights (although I do think it would fit and keeping it with a local company would be nice). A question that comes to mind would be from the state/federal regulators asking, "why do you want to raise your rates when you just paid $25 million for the naming rights for a baseball stadium."

Edited January 25, 2008 by Raintree21

[dxartist]

Finally listened to the interview. Waste of 10 minutes. Like some of the UPers who listened, I also noticed he dodge and danced around specific questions, yadda, yadda, yadda, ya....without offering anything concrete. I commend the hosts for trying to pin him down for an answer, but no good. I wonder who those mystery "supporters" are? He won't say because there are probably none. He kind of reminds of the one-man protester holding up the picket sign while everyone (other than govt officials) ignores him.

Edited January 25, 2008 by dxartist

[CharlotteDave]

I had a chance to listen to this interview as well. I would have less of a problem with him if he was actually part of some local group of business leaders, that could indicate their financial backing to this endevour. I feel like he totally just danced around the questions and couldn't really indicate that he had any other support. That one piece of land he wants will not be Charlotte's one and only chance at landing an MLB team. He said that if we build the Knights stadium in uptown, it will set Charlotte's chance back 10 years. Well, in all honesty, that's about what Charlotte needs. At least another 10 years, given our growth rate, to be able to feasibly support one.

Normally I'd be more sympathetic to Reese because I think Charlotte is closer to being ready for major league baseball than many give it credit for. In this case, though, I completely disagree with what he's doing. For one thing, most of our city leaders don't agree with him that Charlotte could support another pro franchise right now, but most importantly is simply the reality of the current situation in major league baseball: Most of Baseball's struggling franchises from recent times now have new ballparks or new ones on the way: The most recent was the Tampa Bay franchise which reached an agreement a few months ago for a new ballpark in the St. Pete area. Meanwhile, there are no current plans for expansion, so that would appear to be at least a decade away. It would seem to leave the Florida Marlins as the only team that would be even a remote possibility to move to Charlotte, and there is no indication they have any interest in doing that. Therefore, it seems clear to me that Charlotte's best bet, both in terms of its minor and major league prospects, is to build this new ballpark and quickly become one of the national attendance leaders. If that happens, Charlotte would likely move very quickly to the top of the list of future expansion candidates. At this point, that's about all you can hope for, and hopefully in the meantime we'll have a great minor league ballpark to enjoy.

[Justadude]

Regardless of what Reese and his supporters are doing VS what the CCCP and their supporters are doing for their version, I think the UrbanPlanet reader has to ask again what good does a baseball stadium, or for that matter any single use sports venue, do for making downtown Charlotte an interesting city that people will want to visit and live in, I will still contend there are many many better uses for the land than what is proposed.

I still prefer the proposal of having the park there, but not the stadium. Even though this isn't a bad spot for a stadium, it's definitely got weaknesses that we'll regret in the long run. I'm particularly worried about having a parking deck sandwiched between two stadiums; that's three solid blocks of single-use facilities that will be completely empty after 9pm most nights. Red flags ought to be going up.

In a perfect world I'd much rather see this land cultivated as a multi-use area that will improve the quality of life for both residents and visitors on a 24/7 basis. BUT... I'd prefer the current plan to what Reese is proposing. All things considered, a baseball stadium can only help the "vibe" of uptown.

[staffer]

I still prefer the proposal of having the park there, but not the stadium. Even though this isn't a bad spot for a stadium, it's definitely got weaknesses that we'll regret in the long run. I'm particularly worried about having a parking deck sandwiched between two stadiums; that's three solid blocks of single-use facilities that will be completely empty after 9pm most nights. Red flags ought to be going up.

While the park may be empty after 9 pm, might it be likely that many fans (other than those w/small children) may stay in the downtown area post game if there are other things to do that are meal/entertainment/bar related?

[Charlotte_native]

While the park may be empty after 9 pm, might it be likely that many fans (other than those w/small children) may stay in the downtown area post game if there are other things to do that are meal/entertainment/bar related?

No reason to assume not. That is what happens with basketball and football games.

[Miesian Corners]

I still prefer the proposal of having the park there, but not the stadium. Even though this isn't a bad spot for a stadium, it's definitely got weaknesses that we'll regret in the long run. I'm particularly worried about having a parking deck sandwiched between two stadiums; that's three solid blocks of single-use facilities that will be completely empty after 9pm most nights. Red flags ought to be going up.

In a perfect world I'd much rather see this land cultivated as a multi-use area that will improve the quality of life for both residents and visitors on a 24/7 basis. BUT... I'd prefer the current plan to what Reese is proposing. All things considered, a baseball stadium can only help the "vibe" of uptown.

I am in complete agreement. I have never liked the idea of having two large single-use venues so close together. While baseball does a better job of bringing people in to uptown on many more dates than football, the fact remains that when nothing is going on in either, two huge parcels of real estate that are virturally next to each other will be dead, dead, dead.

[Raintree21]

that's three solid blocks of single-use facilities that will be completely empty after 9pm most nights. Red flags ought to be going up.

Actually, most week night games don't start till 7:15pm, then if you throw in the suggested games I listed above, that adds in more evenings as well. A baseball game should last till 10 or later.

[uptownliving]

What could the Knights put in the commercial spot on the stadium property that would help alleviate the dead zone when there is no baseball or football game going on?

[Raintree21]

Affordable restaurants/bars (not like the overpriced restaurant at the arena)? There are already several places around Church Street (French Quarter, Latta Arcade, House of Blues, V lounge or whatever it's called now, if you go down to Graham you have Presto and Cans, and I'm sure there's something else) so it could be a mini-night life area.

Edited January 25, 2008 by Raintree21

[Miesian Corners]

What could the Knights put in the commercial spot on the stadium property that would help alleviate the dead zone when there is no baseball or football game going on?

They could do a better job of wrapping the stadium with retail/office that operates all hours and days. PNC Park in Pittsburgh has done a good job of this. I actually don't know why the Richardsons couldn't add retail to the ground level of BoA Stadium; there appears to be plenty of room to build out from the existing structure. At least that way it wouldn't be dead the vast majority of the year.

[Justadude]

While the park may be empty after 9 pm, might it be likely that many fans (other than those w/small children) may stay in the downtown area post game if there are other things to do that are meal/entertainment/bar related?

I'm actually not that worried about the park because it ought to have residential and nightlife foot-traffic well into the nighttime (like 4th Ward Park). It's the baseball stadium that will offer almost nothing before or after the game -- unless they do a really spectacular job of integrating multi-use units into the exterior, which I frankly doubt will happen given the precedent for such things.

Even if some of the fans go out on the town, it still doesn't alleviate the huge dead zone that will exist over several square blocks due to the stadiums, parking decks, and the train tracks on the other side of Graham. My concerns with this are twofold: 1) From a development perspective this is the same kind of mistake that killed 2nd Ward for 30 years. 2) From a safety perspective we are creating an area that is VERY friendly to shady characters.

Actually, most week night games don't start till 7:15pm, then if you throw in the suggested games I listed above, that adds in more evenings as well. A baseball game should last till 10 or later.

No way a minor-league baseball game should last 3 hours. A 7:15 game ought to be over between 9 and 9:30, with the stadium empty by 10.

[CharlotteDave]

One interesting note about the site for the new ballpark: Apparently it isn't far from where Charlotte's original minor league park, Wearn Field, was located on South Mint St. It was the home of the old Charlotte Hornets from 1901 to 1939. I've read they once drew four thousand people to watch Babe Ruth play in an exhibition and one of their early stars was none other than Moonlight Graham, the real life version of the Field of Dreams character. Given this history, that is one reason I'd love to see them change the name back to the Hornets once they move into the new park, but I know it won't likely happen for a variety of reasons. The name, Knights, while not a bad nickname, is strongly associated with the Ft. Mill saga, so it might arguably be a good idea to start fresh with something unique to Charlotte.

[rockhilljames]

I could get behind changing the name back to Hornets. It would be a great time to "rebrand" the team.

[dubone]

That is an interesting question. Did Shinn buy the rights to the Hornets brand and trademark when he owned the Knights, and then retain them when he moved the Hornets basketball team, or would a baseball team still be allow to use the name as long as they use different branding imagery?

[Raintree21]

I was wondering the same so I went to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Most all I found were registered trademarks with the old Hugo the Hornet holding a basketball with the name Charlotte Hornets. However, I did find one trademark that just said "Charlotte Hornets" by itself without any picture so I assume that means the entire name is trademarked. George Shinn holds it. It also says that no claim is made to the exclusive right to use "Charlotte" apart from above.

Edited January 28, 2008 by Raintree21