Guest MINDSETTER™ John Hazen White, Jr.: Three Strikes on Riverfront Ballpark

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Guest MINDSETTER™ John Hazen White, Jr.

The new owners of the Red Sox AAA franchise have just banged into the public opinion equivalent of the Green Monster in their attempt to shoehorn a new baseball stadium onto land designated to be a public park as part of the I-95 redevelopment project. The recent public meeting only demonstrated how far apart the state and the owners are on relocating the team to Providence.   

With the Governor, leading lawmakers and the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission members acting like sober adults not about to be seduced by the owners’ fairy dust, or hustled by their “must act fast” demands, it’s time for the ownership team to pick themselves up and refashion their plan for a Providence location, or begin to look elsewhere. 

Despite their vision for baseball in the capital city, not only is their desire for the riverfront location misguided – too small a space, already designated as a park that would also facilitate rainwater run-off, requiring Brown University to fork over land and forfeit a recently rehabbed building, requiring federal dispensation to use the land for another purpose – the new owners’ financial demands on the state and city of Providence have incited broad disapproval from Rhode Islanders and effectively put a gun to the heads of elected and appointed officials to play hard ball with them. 

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Instead of coming to the rescue of the PawSox franchise and being regarded as worthy inheritors of the Ben Mondor legacy, the new owners are viewed today as arrogant rich business guys trying to make a killing by destroying a beloved RI brand and tradition. Rejecting McCoy Stadium, which scores of people love, as old fashioned and Pawtucket as suddenly undeserving of a minor league team, has proved to be deeply troubling to both PawSox fans and average citizens who could care less about the fading National Pastime, but certainly don’t want to see the state take another financial bath on a bad idea. 

It’s too bad that the owners have given up on the longtime home of the franchise. Imagine if the new ownership group had unveiled plans to improve McCoy and purchase adjacent properties to redevelop the area and provide some of the amenities they have declared that the local area lacks? Instead of being the objects of such criticism, they would be seen as heroes. Pawtucket and the State of RI would be helping them at every turn. 

Sports and economic development, as has been conclusively demonstrated, do not readily equate. Public investment in sports franchises’ facilities does not spur real economic development. More properly, professional sports activities should be the beneficiary of a strong and healthy economy, made possible by the vibrancy that naturally happens when most people have jobs and discretionary income to spend on entertainment. In other words, pursue economic development first to establish a strong support base for cultural and entertainment venues. 

Our state, as we all recognize, desperately needs sound economic development and strategies for generating well paying jobs. Our present political leaders get that imperative very loud and clear, and they are not buying into the “field of dreams” narrative being spun by the owners. State officials would be reckless to throw aside the “meds and eds” pathway provided by the I-195 relocation land redevelopment to accommodate these owners’ wishes so they can profit off the taxpayers with a seasonally occupied, heavily subsidized ballpark. 

Those same officials are having enough of a challenge marketing the available parcels as it is: focus all attention on a fast track ballpark springing up on land originally designated to support the adjacent areas where the “real” development is supposed to take place, is a sure way to distract and derail the entire redevelopment enterprise.   

The principal owner has been making big public-private deals for decades. In fact, he’s a master when it comes to making such deals. The art of the deal, as he surely knows, is to be flexible and resourceful in order to get the best deal you can. With the riverfront stadium dead by the water, it’s time to regroup and maybe call the guy with a nearby plot of land he’s willing to sell. Or rethink Pawtucket before picking up the bats and balls and leaving RI.   

John Hazen White, Jr. is the owner of Taco, Inc. in Cranston.

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