Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Memorial Stadium

I will be interested in seeing how long it will take our elected officials to announce that they are tearing down Memorial Stadium and then expanding the parking lot of the Memorial Coliseum.

Here are a couple of interesting facts about Memorial Stadium:

1. As of 12/31/06 it was valued as a 10.49 million dollar asset. This asset is carried on Allen County's books.

2. The current cost of demolishing the stadium and expanding the parking lost is 2.2 million dollars.

When the existing stadium is demolished a whole lot of Fort Wayne residents will be highly upset. I also imagine many people will be upset when 2.2 million tax dollars are used to demolish something that has been in place for less then 20 years.

What a joke.

Mike Sylvester

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike,

Would they be happier to spend 8 to 12 million fixing it up? What a Joke.

LP Mike Sylvester said...

8 to 12 million to fix it up?

That is an absurd number...

It would cost 3 - 5 million to fix it up; only people who blindly support The Harrison Square Project spount 8 - 12 million. Come on...

Mike Sylvester

Anonymous said...

It cost $6 mm to build in 1993 and it's going to cost $12 mm to fix it? Now that's inflation!

Anonymous said...

It cost 6 million to build a bare bones below average stadium. It will cost 8 to 12 million to bring it up to the standards necessary for today's minor league standards. Only blind opponents would say otherwise.

Jeff Pruitt said...

$8-12 Million is a fabrication used by Hardball Capital and the administration to justify Harrison Square...

Kaiser said...

It surprised me that they spend money raising the roof of MC a few years back. Sorry folks, but the coliseum (at least the arena portion) is a dump!!!

Anonymous said...

Everybody knows 8 - 12 million dollars is a phony number so let's drop it.

A below average ballpark? Is that what we are going to be saying in 10 years when the HS people come with their hands out for the restoration of their ballpark? Of course, knowing FW, they'll probably demolish HS and put the staidum back in the suburbs.

Jonathan Bartels said...

The difference this year is that with 8 Libertarian candidates on the ballot you can vote and choose candidates who will stop Harrision Square (or at least mitigate the damages) and break the cycle.

Anonymous said...

Jonathan, the odds of one libertarian candidate getting more than 5% of the vote is about the same as a dog walking on the sun.

barranda said...

Sorry Bartels, I think the Libertarian ticket will simply take fiscal conservative votes away from the Republican party...giving the D's a better shot.

Tim Zank said...

Could someone explain to me just what is so inferior about the relatively new Memorial Stadium? Seriously, the size and condition of the field are fine, the seats are plenty,(can't fill 'em now) right? The structure is CONCRETE...it ain't fallin' apart.

What in the hell could you upgrade with that kind of dough? Laz-boy recliners in place of the seats?

That's a nice stadium, I think your fair city is doing what the army was famous for..."make work" for the sake of "making work".

You guys must be LOADED down there!

Anonymous said...

Mr. Zank, If you cannot see our concrete stadium in the middle of the parking lot as a testament to grand mediocrity, then I dont think any sort of explanation can help you out.

Anonymous said...

What is a parking lost?

Try spell check, Mike

Anonymous said...

Tim - It's not "make work", but it's "make a name for Graham Richard". I am intrigued by the paragraph in the Stadium Agreement that states that "The city reserves the naming rights for the City Park that will be included in the stadium" - I'll just bet that a guy presently on the 9th floor of our government office building has plans to name it after himself! Anyone want to bet on this? John B. Kalb

Anonymous said...

John B. Kalb, I have heard you say some ridiculous things about H. Square, but this may be the best yet. Yes, John, its going to be Graham Richard park. That is what is behind this. Mayor Richard has an insatiable thirst to have a park named after him. I alsot think they should name the left field wall the "Kalb Monster" in honor of your wall like opposition to change downtown.

I look forward to our beer on opening night.

Sam T.

Anonymous said...

Anyone that thinks Memorial stadium isn't a dump has never been to a real ball park, plain and simple. Gary Indiana has a far better facility than the current cement block on Coliseum. They aren't even a MLB affiliate. The Coliseum is adequate for the #1 Minor League Sports town, and the new stadium will be much better than average + it may help jump start some change and excitement downtown. Fort Wayne desperately needs that. If you don't see it, maybe it's you that's the "blind follower.

Tim Zank said...

Seriously, what makes the existing ball park a dump, and the Gary ball park far better? Is it the shade (color) of the concrete? Are the concrete hallways a little wider, with a few more "souvenier" shops? Does their popcorn have more butter? Is the beer colder? Are the plastic seats less "plastic feeling"? Is the asphalt parking lot different?
Is it because the rows of seats don't ascend rapidly enough? Does the Gary Stadium have a retracting dome? Maybe they use better speakers for the PA system?

If I remember correctly, all stadiums are "concrete blocks", the only difference being the color of the cement, the ascendency of seating, the use of higher tech advertising around the outfield, and the quality & availability of food.

Is the "ambience" nicer in Garys concrete monolyth than Ft Waynes??

I don't care where or what Ft Wayne builds in the way of a stadium, because I'm not paying for it, but YOU GUYS sure as hell are!

And for the record, I've been to a lot of baseball stadiums in the last 49 years, especially the spring training camps in Sun City & Peoria AZ and they are no nicer than Memorial Stadium.

Kaiser said...

Tim,

I don't know if you referring to my comment or not, but I was specifically referring to the Arena, not the ball stadium.

Tim Zank said...

Kaiser, I wasn't referring to your comment, I was responding to bruinboiler76.....

Anonymous said...

Cracks me up that supporters of HS say that it will be a multi-use facility. Thy're never going to allow soccer or any other use for that matter...citing "damage to the turf" concerns.

This is so obviously a payoff/favor return between the politicians and the wizards. It makes no sense to shove a one season/year boondoggle down the throats of taxpayers. I wonder how many council members already have their box seats picked out?

fairplaybeach said...

That's a good point about "damage to the turf" at HS. That was a response I got one time when I asked about using a couple of the better local soccer sites for a grass vb tourney. That thought had occurred to me about the multi-use facility when I heard that. Do they "multi-use" in many other downtown fields in other cities, I wonder?

Anonymous said...

I understand that the multi-use that the city is talking about (high school football -hey, it's HS football ha), is not allowed by Major League Baseball for affiliated teams like the Wizards.

Anonymous said...

"Damage to turf" can be minimal if the right type of grass seed is planted at HS. Wizards season ends the first week of September, high school football and soccer start in late August and go til early October (regular season). It CAN be multi-use, just limit the number of games played on it. New grass seed is supposed to be planted in the fall, so this can be done when the high school fall seasons are done (mid Oct). This would leave plenty of time for the seed to take root and come in nice in the spring. This is not rocket science.

Anonymous said...

If that's true, let's get it in writing. Not rocket science, right? - IG

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