A (new?) baseball proposal
Aren’t these things a dime a dozen now? Anyway, this one, by Opening Day Partners, is for renovating the existing diamond by demolishing everything but the lower bowl. Then an expansive retail facade would be built around it, etc etc. It actually looks pretty neat.
Additional accoutrement include a year round skateboard park (!) and a winter ice skating rink!
Download the PowerPoint (sigh) here or a hastily printed PDF here.
let’s see here….a proposal at half the cost of the shockoe bottom proposal….by a company with experience in doing this….with many of the same retail features as the shockoe plan. Let the hating begin!
The hating?
This makes sense… to bad we dont tend to do things that make sense.
I can tell you that the winter ice skating will never happen. The current large rinks in town don’t want *any* competition.
Richmond needs to take the same approach to a Baseball Field as Richmond International Raceway does to NASCAR. Keep it in one place and improve it as necessary. The location makes no difference if the facility meets the demand. Of course, the Boulevard Corridor will benefit from further enhancement of the Avenue from Maymont to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. The Northside of Richmond will receive no benefit from a Ballpark in the middle of Downtown Richmond. Not to mention, the cost savings. It sounds like a very sensible idea.
This seems reasonable in concept. But the sketch above is uninspiring to say the least, and the approach seems more “build it and they will come” as far as skate park and bumper boats go.
RIR is an extremely bad example. RIR expands in order to satisfy an expanding fan base and increase revenue. The Diamond has a minimal fan base, and had no need to expand even when it did have a fan base. To me the most compelling argument about putting a ballpark downtown is the immediate built-in fan base. Furthermore, RIR as a complex does little to improve the surrounding area, besides ramp up sales at local gas stations a few days a year.
The Diamond’s problem is that it was designed and sited based on planning ideas that ultimately haven’t panned out for a myriad of reasons. I’m not sure that this proposal does anything to address those reasons, but i do like the idea of not just demolishing the existing structure.
I also hear this plan entails having bumper cars outside of it. Isn’t baseball entertaining enough? Why do we need all of these distractions. I sure hope this doesn’t have the feel of carnival . ..
Stadiums over the past several years that have been done well are the one’s that keep the focus on baseball (yankees stadium, baltimore, citzens bank park in philly . . ) – I think it would serve us well to follow their examples. Sorry, I’m not all too crazy about this plan.
What dicernable economic benefit is visible from the Diamond’s 50 year history? It is not exactly a garden spot.
paul_h, yes, the hating. I’m sure that someone will attack this proposal b/c they simply don’t like it, the same manner in which the Shockoe Center project has been attacked. I like the revised plan for the diamond. I’m also not necessarily against the Shockoe Center proposal also.
Same here, I am for Shockoe, but I am for baseball. I hope something happens soon.
“Additional accoutrement include a year round skateboard park (!) and a winter ice skating rink!”
Yeeahh! Good ideas. The li’l rink they had at Tredegar was great fun. And it’s more fun skating outdoors than in a building. However slick, you can’t see the sky.
So–why wasn’t this idea at the forefront from the beginning? Cheaper than the Shockoe proposal, would bring development to an area that could benefit from it (and has easy highway access), uses space that is readily available and that won’t flood…seems like a good idea overall.
I’m not real keen on the bumper boats, etc, but these additional ideas (skate park, etc) make the stadium have a life outside of the 70-ish home games a year.
I hope this sort of idea moves forward–I think this is a good approach.