In the ballpark
Experts, public officials at odds on the economic benefits of baseball in York
DAINA KLIMANIS The York Dispatch
June 23, 2005

Eric Perrone grew up on Lancaster's North Prince Street and remembers the aging commercial and industrial buildings that used to be where Clipper Magazine Stadium now sits.
He has never seen the neighborhood's sidewalks as full as they were last summer, when the Lancaster Barnstormers' first season and a couple of concerts drew crowds to his part of town.

The business he owns, The Sandwich Factory Inc., sees an increase in customers on event days, but Perrone is more focused on how alive his part of town has become.

"Instead of having something run down, it's great for the neighborhood," Perrone said.

York officials have long been promoting a stadium as a vehicle for economic development. Mayor John Brenner often urges people to visit Lancaster, where property values near Lancaster's year-old stadium have gone up and developers have invested millions since the stadium site was announced several years ago.

The stadium could do the same for York, making the project a key part of the city's revitalization, Brenner said.

"It's good for property values. It's good for a community," Brenner said.

Impact difficult to measure: But when it comes to what minor-league stadiums can do for a city, officials from areas with successful stadiums sometimes chime in with economists -- they say stadiums are a great way to boost community pride in people like Perrone, but have a limited and difficult-to-quantify economic impact at best.

Stadiums are an easy project for politicians to back, said Wilbur C. Rich, a political science professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

But he and others who have studied the economic impact of minor-league stadiums on municipalities say politicians and the consultants they hire often paint overly rosy pictures of the potential those stadiums have to spur economic development.

"It doesn't have the kind of strength that people will try to market it as," Rich said.

Though Brenner and others have attributed rising property values in Lancaster's northwest to the newly built stadium in the neighborhood, business owners said the area had seen business interest increase before the stadium site was selected.

"The whole northwest quadrant is certainly the most active area in Lancaster City," said Andrew Oak, project coordinator for The Drogaris Companies. The company has developed office space and luxury housing near the stadium, plans created before the stadium site had been picked.

New entrepreneurs: Lancaster's stadium has brought a few entrepreneurs into that neighborhood.

Chris Ditzler said the stadium was part of the reason he and his wife, Tracey Ditzler, decided to buy a corner storefront just a couple of blocks away. They now run Slugger's Pizzeria and cater in part to the ballpark crowd.

And though Paul Fulmer and Phil Wolgemuth were al
ready looking to develop a property in Lancaster's northwest before they knew the stadium was coming in nearby, they increased the amount they were willing to invest in development because of the ballpark, they said.

"I think it legitimized that area of the city with businesses and real estate developers," Wolgemuth said. "... But it also legitimized it for suburban and rural residents of Lancaster County, many of whom would otherwise not travel to the city for whatever reason."

Rich said stadiums do have some impact on the economy. They create some jobs, many of them service jobs. A successful team can also bring customers to nearby businesses, he said. But the impact is modest.

"You go to a minor league stadium, you go to Denny's," Rich said. "That's not really a lot of money generated."

Attendance key: The amount of economic benefit a town gets from its baseball stadium -- as well as the success of the team itself -- depends on people coming out to games.

Jay Minkarah, economic development director of Nashua, N.H., said he has seen the results of low attendance. Before the Nashua Pride joined the Canadian-American Association of Professional Baseball, or the Can-Am League, last year, the city had the lowest attendance in the Atlantic League, averaging fewer than 1,300 people a game.

The spectators who did come generally drove to the games, parked in a nearby lot, and drove away afterward, Minkarah said.

"The Pride wasn't filling the parking lot in the last season, much less the surrounding area, so there was no real spillover effect," Minkarah said. Even the visiting team members ate and slept in another municipality, he said.

Mark Sousa, chief of staff for Nashua's mayor and also the former director of sales and marketing for the Nashua Pride, disagrees. He said restaurants that advertise in the stadium fill up on game nights, with many of the patrons coming from out of town.

He relies on a study done some time ago that estimated the city would eventually recoup the $2 million in public money it spent to renovate its ballpark. Though Sousa said maintenance costs the city extra -- he didn't know how much -- he considers the stadium an overall
plus for the city.

Early to judge: Randy Patterson, executive director of the Lancaster County Redevelopment Authority, said it's too early to judge what the economic impact of Lancaster's stadium has been -- and said the stadium wouldn't be the sole force driving economic development in its part of the city.

"We always presented the potential economic development that would be spurred by the stadium to be a long-term impact for the city, not short-term," Patterson wrote in an e-mail.

But neighborhood business owners, even those whose plans hadn't been influenced by the stadium, have said they think the city's investment in their neighborhood signals good things.

Eric Lapinsky, co-owner of The Brickyard sports bar, said that not only was the extra business he sees on baseball game days an unexpected windfall, but the city's efforts in the area reassure business owners who are sinking their money into the neighborhood.

"Now that it is rolling, it's nice to see that the city is very much behind it," Lapinsky said.

Peter Keares, president of Keares Restaurant Group, said some of his Lancaster establishments, especially Doc Holliday's Steakhouse on Harrisburg Pike, actually see a drop in customers because of baseball.

"A lot of our customers told us, 'Oh, we weren't here this week -- we went to a game' or 'went to a couple games, ' " Keares said.

But Keares supports the stadium, which he said will ultimately help revitalize the area.

"It's definitely brought much needed investment into the area," Keares said.

About this series
As York City Mayor John Brenner and other officials have promoted a planned independent-league baseball stadium, they have urged people to take a trip to nearby Lancaster, where a similar stadium was completed last year. Not only has that stadium been drawing sellout crowds, but some officials have credited it with encouraging development and boosting property values.

This summer, work is expected to begin on a similar stadium in York. Over three days, The York Dispatch will look at the prospects for York's stadium project, in part by examining the Lancaster experience.

The series will include:

--- Today: The project's economic development potential.

--- Tomorrow: A look at whether people will attend Atlantic League games in downtown York.

--- Friday: A look at stadium parking plans, which call on people to do some walking.

The York City stadium project at a glance
After years of talk about bringing baseball back to town and more than a decade of starts and stops, Mayor John Brenner's administration has backed a stadium site in the city's Arch Street neighborhood and is doing its best to keep the project on the fast track.

The project is being directed by the York County Economic Development Corp., which expects the stadium to promote economic development.

--- The timetable: If the project stays on schedule, the new stadium will be open for baseball in June 2007. Demolition of buildings now standing at the stadium site is set to begin in June, and stadium construction could begin in August.

--- The team: The unbuilt stadium has already been leased by the York Professional Baseball Club, which plans to bring in an independent Atlantic League team. The league is not affiliated with the major leagues, but many of its players have major league experience.

The club is a subsidiary created by Keystone Professional Baseball, which owns the Lancaster Barnstormers, another Atlantic League team.

--- The cost: It could take as much as $31.5 million to complete the project, but costs are expected to come in lower, said Darrell Auterson, president and CEO of the York County Economic Development Corp.

Officials have secured $28 million in promised funding so far: $13.5 million from the state, $8 million in advance rent from the baseball club, and up to $8 million in private pledges.

--- Acquiring the land: Plans call for acquiring 23 properties, 15 of them residential, to build the stadium. Settlements on most of those properties have taken place.

Three properties might be seized via eminent domain, a move authorized by the city redevelopment authority. Two of them are commercial sites whose owners rejected offers of more than 170 percent of the properties' appraised values, saying the appraisals were flawed. One of those owners contends the authority does not have the power to seize the land in the first place.

The owner of the third property, a vacant lot, did not respond to purchase offers.
--Reach Daina Klimanis at 505-5439 or dklimani s@yorkdispatch.com.