9-23-2005
Winning season
Baseball cheered Lancaster and Lancaster cheered baseball. Now, how to continue the rally.

By Gil Smart
Sunday News
Published: Sep 24, 2005 9:36 PM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Call it a solid single, not necessarily the long ball Chris Ditzler hoped for, but the type of base hit around which rallies are built. Ditzler owns Slugger’s Pizzeria on North Queen Street, a few blocks from Clipper Magazine Stadium, where the Lancaster Barnstormers play their final game of the season this afternoon. Like other restaurant and business owners near the ballpark, he hoped throngs of baseball fans would give him something to cheer about.

He wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with new customers this summer, but “I can always tell when there’s a game on. We’re a little bit busier,” said Ditzler. Baseball fans who’d never been to his restaurant stopped in and, on occasion, came back.

It was a good first inning.

And the key now is to leverage that success into an even better second frame.

Though it’s hard to quantify the economic impact of the team and the stadium, by anyone’s yardstick it has been immense. Hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in investment have followed in the ballpark’s wake. Some of it may have happened without the stadium, but in other cases business owners specifically told local economic development officials that they wanted to be the near the stadium; several projects went from vague ideas to actual construction in the wake of the “lead investment,” the ballpark.

Jon Danos, Barnstormers’ president, said the activity generated in and around the stadium dwarfed what he had seen elsewhere with other minor-league clubs he’d been affiliated with.

Planning has begun for next season. The team is considering new attractions; the James Street Improvement District is mulling a marketing campaign to create more “spillover” business for restaurants and retail sites near the stadium.

“It is so early” in the game, said Lisa Riggs, JSID executive director. “We’ve got a big opportunity for next year.”

By the numbers

Some numbers:

By the end of the day, some 380,000 people will have passed through Clipper Magazine Stadium’s turnstiles. This, for a team, that has hung out or near the basement all season.

Charles Maneval, Lancaster city’s director of economic development, cited nine companies or projects that have moved or will move into northwest Lancaster and whose interest can, at least in part, be attributed to the ballpark. Those firms — from Auntie Anne’s Cafe to Charter Homes, Premier Companies LLC, the Brickyard Restaurant and others — represent more than 400 jobs.

That, in addition to those employed by the team itself, which included 23 full-time employees, 45 “full-time seasonal” employees (think players, field staff and some administrative staff), as well as a total of 432 seasonal part-timers, not all of whom worked at the same time.

The team also had 13 interns.

According to the James Street Investment District’s annual report, an estimated $30 million in private sector projects have been completed, are under way or planned within the next year; another $25 million are still on the drawing board. And “there is a lot percolating” that the public doesn’t know about yet, said Riggs.

The JSID reports that properties have sold, on average, for 15 percent above assessed value, with those west of Prince Street and south of Harrisburg Pike selling at 19 percent above assessment. “And we’re seeing people selling their [commercial] buildings for 100 percent more than they were thinking about selling it for two years ago,” said Riggs.

Nationwide, there is a debate over whether stadiums have a measurable economic impact, with many experts arguing that they don’t. One, Allen R. Sanderson of the University of Chicago, has written extensively about the topic, arguing that while ballparks can have a strong influence on nearby businesses, the overall economic impact on the city itself is usually minimal.

But here, the impact of the ballpark has exceeded expectations.

“I am frankly surprised by the level of activity,” said David Nikoloff, executive director of the Economic Development Company of Lancaster County. “I had my expectations, but they were nowhere near what I see happening.”

Barnstormers’ president Danos attributes it to the urban location. “This is the first time we’ve done a real downtown project,” said Danos, whose parent company, Maryland Baseball, has developed several stadiums, often in suburbs. For example, in Bowie, Md., Prince George’s Stadium, home of the Bowie Baysox, was built “in a bedroom community, on a major interchange,” said Danos. “That’s not to say it hasn’t acted as a stimulus”; the stadium was the first business built on that particular stretch off Route 301 North, and several chain restaurants and expensive homes were subsequently built nearby.

Danos declined to provide specifics, but said merchandise and concession sales at the ballpark were “above average” as compared to minor league standards; the team itself is “one of the top-drawing minor league teams in the country ... and this is just the beginning.”

Will it last?

There’s not much scheduled at the ballpark this autumn, but team and local officials will turn their attention to the second season.

Danos said he’s asked all the time about what will happen when the novelty wears off. But the team and the stadium will continue to add features; there’s talk of a swimming pool or bumper boat ride next season. “We’ve got to keep things upbeat and fresh. That’s an important component of our long-term strategy,” said Danos.

The James Street Improvement District also wants to ratchet up its marketing efforts in an attempt to get baseball fans to visit more establishments before or after the game. “Most people are just coming in for the game and leaving when it’s over,” said Riggs. “I don’t think there’s a huge spillover.”

Mike Lombardo would attest to that. A co-owner of Lombardo’s Restaurant, he said the ballpark’s generated some additional business, but not a whole lot. Yet he wonders if the team’s schedule had something to do with that.

All games during the week were played in the evenings, and by the time the game’s over most fans have to head home.

Lombardo wonders about the possibility of “business persons’ specials,” weekday afternoon games that would end at 6 p.m. or so — dinnertime.

Such initiatives, said Lombardo, along with the presence of the park itself, “can only improve the neighborhood.”