Stadium’s future is far from certain
Tough questions must be asked before downtown project proceeds.
Can Memorial Stadium, built at considerable public expense just 14 years ago, be saved if a new $30 million taxpayer-funded baseball park is built downtown?
Even city officials know it’s a legitimate question, or they wouldn’t have implied the answer is “yes” when they announced plans for the impressive “Harrison Square” project last month.
But just how realistic is the stated plan for the existing facility’s survival: its use as a “community asset” controlled by Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne? Right now, the odds seem against it.
According to Randy Brown, general manager of the Memorial Coliseum and Stadium, the stadium showed a surplus of $21,225 in 2005. But if the minor-league Wizards move downtown, they’ll take most of the stadium’s $1 million annual revenue with them. Expenses could be cut dramatically by the loss of 70 professional baseball games, but Brown says at least $200,000 to $300,000 in annual insurance, utility, maintenance and other costs would remain.
And who, exactly, would pay for that?
Yes. Who? I'll give you a guess and only a guess.
And another good question at the end of this paragraph.
But with Memorial Stadium’s construction debt scheduled to be paid off at the end of this year, surely this question must be asked: If the public is asked to pay $25 million of the new stadium’s $30 million price tag, should it also be asked to continue to subsidize the old one for sparsely attended events?
I just paid off my trailer. I'm going to buy a new trailer. I'm going to move into the new trailer. I'm going to rent the old trailer to someone who will just stay on weekends and pay for those two days only.
Yeah. Makes sense.
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