The hidden cost to make nice with those whose lives do not revolve around the 6-4-3 double-play ball is certain to rise with each protest, meeting and report that questions the revitalization power of the proposed ballpark in Southeast Washington.
The latest initiative of D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams is a community benefit fund intended to assuage the anger and concern of a citizenry resistant to the $435.2million ballpark plan.
The publicly financed tab, of course, is bound to rise as well, assuming there are legal battles, weather-induced construction delays and cost overruns.
The economic delicacy of the proposed ballpark has come to be the mayor’s hangover following the celebration that coincided with the awarding of the Expos to the city.
The mayor did what he had to do to secure the barnstorming team, and now he is endeavoring to complete the deal before those activist groups with real or imagined objections. The proposed ballpark has evolved into a typically Washington issue, with the attendant question, “What’s in it for me?”
There is an element of a city wanting it both ways. It is a city that was mostly united in the pursuit of the team until the owners of Major League Baseball squeezed every last concession from the mayor before dumping the nomadic operation on the nation’s capital. Now it is a city that seems to be asking, “What, you mean we have to pay for it?”
That is the deal, hard as it is to like. The alternative was obvious enough. The owners, Peter Angelos in particular, would have been happy to dispatch the team to Northern Virginia or to another locality eager to meet their take-it or leave-it position.
It is our team. Our burden, too.
The District-based Cato Institute questions the economic stimulus of a ballpark, which is at odds with the optimism of the mayor’s number-crunching brigade. The question is fair enough, based on the evidence in all too many other cities.
Even if the numbers end up being funny, the vision to plant something appealing along the Anacostia River is not. That section is the new frontier of a city whose real estate values have exploded in recent years. The ongoing makeover in Tony Cheng’s neighborhood is no small guide, encouraged in part by Abe Pollin’s playpen on Fun Street.
The thinkers with the Cato Institute suggest that the monies spent inside the ballpark are monies that would be spent on another form of entertainment in the city, and thus it is a dubious element of the pro-ballpark argument.
The proposition depends on who’s spending the money. If as many as 80 percent of the ballpark denizens end up being from the suburbs, as D.C. Council member Jim Graham suggests, those are not necessarily monies that would find their way to city coffers.
The portion of the suburbanites who are hard-core sports fans usually only stay in the city after the workday if there is a game involving the Wizards or Caps on tap. They are not apt to wind up in the Kennedy Center or the National Theatre instead. These are two different entertainment crowds that rarely overlap.
The mayor’s projection comes with an element of faith, no doubt. No one is in the mood to contemplate the financial fallout of a team that struggles to put a quality product on the field.
And this no-name bunch is starting anew from last place.
Washington is not enamored with losers, especially if the cost of attending a game stresses the family budget. The ownership group that buys the no-names will be obligated to upgrade the team in a hurry. The novelty of having a team again will be enough to satisfy the masses next season. The novelty of a new ballpark is likely to have the same but limited effect in three years.
Otherwise, that $20 hot dog is going to be a hard sell.
Here’s a suggestion to those who object to the proposed ballpark and what promises to be a growing price tag: Hold your nose.
That maneuver works equally well along the banks of the Anacostia River.
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