2/01/2007

It's just a start

Ballparkdigest.com has a link to this column in the Journal Gazette

Stadium just a start in renewal endeavor

I was buying a sandwich downtown the other day when the restaurant operator asked what I thought of the new baseball stadium proposed just down the street.

I hemmed and hawed, and then he said, “I think it’s a waste.”

Why spend all that money on a new stadium that’s going to be used only four months a year, he asked. He pointed out the new convention center expansion across the street from the proposed stadium. It’s empty most of the time, he said.
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Last October, in a story about the United States hitting 300 million in population, U.S. News & World Report described Fort Wayne as a gritty, Rust Belt city. Not many people caught the reference. Not many fumed as they did when other magazines labeled Fort Wayne fat and later dumb.

The label, though, does cause one to pause and wonder what outsiders think of the city. The city leaves a negative impression on a lot of people, both visitors and residents. Go to the newer suburbs and the city is anything but gritty. In the interior, the city has plenty of grit to go around – closed factories, run-down neighborhoods overrun by abandoned homes and crime.


Here is the end of the column

A new stadium downtown where you can watch minor-league baseball isn’t going to prove any more of a lure to Fort Wayne than a stadium on the outskirts, he said.

The criticisms are valid.

But I’m not going to go on a rampage against the stadium, though I don’t think it will perform the magic people are hoping for. But if you’re going to revitalize a city, you have to start somewhere. That’s the key. This would be just a start.

Fort Wayne is fixated on downtown. It has been for years. It tried the Courtyards project about 20 years ago. It didn’t revitalize the area. In fact, businesses slowly left. The area looks nice but it empties like a schoolhouse when 5 p.m. arrives.

Now the city is setting its sites on a mildly gritty, blighted corner of downtown, a weed-filled plot with broken-down curbs and sidewalks and litter.

But the city can’t stop there. What about the blight that will continue to exist a few blocks to the south, or a few blocks to the east? The plans are just a start.

Ultimately, though, are the questions: Will people come to the area when it’s done? Will they shop there? Will they socialize there? Will they stay there after a game, or after a show? Will they gravitate there when there isn’t a game or a show? If not, why not?

I can’t answer those questions, but the questions should be answered, first.

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