Ft. Wayne Council Member Urges Bigger Private Investment on Stadium
http://indianasnewscenter.com/Story.aspx?type=ln&NStoryID=4972
- Councilman Smith wants Hardball Capital to pay $15 million towards the ballpark, instead of the $5 million currently planned
- In addition, he wants the $10 million difference to pay for road infrastructure costs at Fairfield and Baker
- The city was already planning to fix the intersection, in accordance with their responsibility to provide for the infrastructure of the city
Hardball Capital wouldn't even have to pay the additional $10 million proposed by Tom Smith if naming rights for the ballpark can be sold for roughly $5 million, which is a reasonable and comparable amount when looking at other fields, such as in Toledo and Dayton.
Do you think Tom Smith's proposal is reasonable or do you think that the city should be responsible for infrastructure?
2 comments:
Obviously Councilman Smith agrees that the Harrison Square project would result in the addition of thousands of visitors to downtown. That is the objective of the project.
According to the deputy mayor, in the past decade downtown has received $2 million in private investment. We are being offered private investment worth more than ten times that amount from Hardball Capital in the Harrison Square project.
If Hardball Capital does end up spending more than they originally offered I would assume it would focus on their business objectives: baseball and real estate, not road repair.
In my opinion, its reasonable, but I also think their contribution of 5 million is reasonable. The city has been considering a downtown stadium for years now, even before Hardball Capital owned the Wizards, but nothing ever got off the drawing board until now. Now that we've got the chance to make this dream a reality, we're taking this opportunity, and Hardball Capital is going to help fund some of it. We wanted a new stadium downtown before Hardball Capital ever owned the Wizard's, so in my opinion we should fund most of the project.
Also, Hardball Capital is also investing millions in other areas of the Harrison Square project. They're not simply investing 5 million like some believe.
So I guess I'm split on this one. If they're willing to pay the extra 10 million, then by all means thats fine with me. But if they're not, then thats also fine, since the way I see it, they're helping us with the funding of the project, not us helping them.
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