Both the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Banner have published weirdly parallel reports (both citing two anonymous sources familiar with the situation) saying that Orioles owner John Angelos plans to pass on his option for a five-year lease extension when his current Camden Yards lease expires at the end of this year. This is not because he plans to move the team or threaten to, though — those same sources say Angelos may offer to sign a short-term extension if talks drag on past the end of this year — but rather because he wants to negotiate a new long-term lease deal, a la what the Ravens owners agreed to last month.
So far, so nothingburger of a news item: We already knew that Angelos wanted a long-term deal so he could tap into that sweet bottomless pool of renovation funding the state set up last year. (The fund will provide at minimum $600 million in taxpayer money per team, though since new bonds can be sold as old ones are paid off, the total subsidy could end up much more than that.) What’s new is that he’s apparently looking to expand his deal to also include some kind of development rights to the area around his stadium:
In a joint statement Wednesday, Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles CEO John Angelos said they intend to redevelop Camden Yards and “deliver a live, work, play theme that will bring residents, businesses, and tourists to downtown Baltimore year-round.”…
[The news release expressed] their “commitment to creating a long-term, multi-decade, public-private partnership that both develops and revitalizes the Camden Yards complex as a magnet for sports tourism and leverages Maryland taxpayers’ investment in the property.”
That certainly sounds like more than just “we’re going to add some new wine bars to our 30-year-old stadium and call it an ‘economic catalyst,'” though neither Moore nor Angelos were any more specific about just what a “live, work, play theme” would look like. The Sun mentioned the Atlanta Braves‘ Battery development as a reference point, but there isn’t really room for a whole new neighborhood like that around Camden Yards: It’s bordered by private houses to the west, a small parking lot to the south, the historic warehouse building, light rail lines, and the city’s convention center to the east, and more big buildings, including a Marriott, to the north. Which isn’t to say the state and team couldn’t come up with something creative — like including a deal with Angelos to build some O’s-themed development a ways away from the stadium — but this is very much not a “build a bunch of crap in the sea of surrounding parking lots” scenario.
Whether this ends up a way to leverage Angelos’s desire to tap into that pot of renovation money to get him to build other stuff that would benefit the city or a way for Angelos to leverage the state’s desire to lock him into a lease by demanding additional subsidies will, obviously, depend on how tough a negotiator Moore is over the coming months. The history of elected officials who’ve sniffed a chance at declaring “revitalization” isn’t very promising, and the unnamed sources apparently didn’t hint at what the two sides are planning to demand — showing yet again why it’s terrible practice to base your stories on anonymous sources without letting readers in on whether they might have ulterior motives for leaking the info — so we’ll just have to wait and hope for the best. While, sure, preparing for the worst, you’ve read this site before, would we have it any other way?