Greetings from New York, where we now have two terrible mayors instead of one! That’s hardly the worst of today’s political news, so instead let us distract ourselves with some (mostly) terrible stadium and arena news:
- The Baltimore Ravens‘ $434 million stadium renovation project is now a $489 million renovation project, and 64% of the additional cost is set to be covered by state taxpayers. Or, if you’re whatever AI is writing the headlines over at Sports Illustrated, “Ravens Spending Over $50 Million More on Stadium Upgrades,” sure, that’s probably right, no need to read your own story to check.
- D.C. United‘s owners want to add 10,000 seats and a roof to their (checks) not yet 7-year-old stadium, and “what remains unknown is the potential price tag or whether the team will ask the city for subsidies.” Also the Axios reporter passing this along (from an original source of “two sources,” not even “familiar with the team’s thinking” or anything) calls D.C. United “American soccer royalty,” what ever happened to no more kings?
- Missouri House Speaker Jonathan Patterson is turning up the heat on Jackson County, saying “time is running out” for “a plan and course of action” for new Kansas City Royals and Chiefs stadiums, or else … the teams will kick everything back a year and try again, again? Too many showrunners these days really do substitute overbearing string sections for viable suspense plots.
- D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says a Washington Commanders stadium “will be the anchor that attracts other investment–housing, amenities, jobs, and opportunities,” guess somebody doesn’t remember what the late Allen Sanderson said about NFL stadiums and cemeteries.
- In 2023, the city of Anaheim commissioned a $325,000, two-month study of how to keep the Angels‘ stadium viable for decades to come, and now the study may not be done until 2026 and will cost over $1 million, cool, cool.
- New Sacramento Republic F.C. vaportecture! And it looks like, uh, a soccer stadium? At least there are some smoke bombs, on both ends of the pitch for some reason, but no fireworks or people holding up scarves dramatically and we can’t even see what ridiculous formation the players are in, I give this a B-minus for entertainment value at best.
I can speak from personal observation about the situation in Detroit, where we were told Comerica Facility would be a might engine for economic development. That was the theme of the city referendum on using public money for building it. The mayor was on tv every half hour telling us that if the new stadium is built we’d see more police on the street, more teachers in schools, we’d all be handsomer and richer.
After a decade I broke my boycott of the stadium and I go to about a dozen games a year. A few bars and restaurants in the vicinity do better business on game days and parking lots that might otherwise be empty are often filled…some of those lots are Illitch owned sites that we were promised would be for wonderful new developments but for some reason are still parking lots. I am unable to see much other effect.
The football stadium is used ten times a year and the occasional rock concert and wrestling show. Again, some restaurant and bar business and some parking.
Other than that I haven’t seen much in the way of actual effects but maybe I’m missing something.
I haven’t been to a Tigers game in many years, but Comerica is my favorite stadium. It is too bad there hasn’t been more development in the area. Isn’t Dan Gilbert mostly to blame? Doesn’t he own a lot of land in downtown Detroit?
IIRC, both Gilbert and Illitch are big players in central Detroit land ownership and development, and neither are doing a particularly good job of it.
2 years ago I went to an event at the Little Caesars Arena and was shocked by the half finished District Detroit. Then I heard the Illiches were begging for hundreds of millions more for District Detroit. Another welfare billionaire who doesn’t deliver on promises.
I am so curious to see how they will expand Audi Field on such a small lot. I’m all about the expansion, but it screams “multi purpose” field with artificial turf.
I’ve been there twice since Covid. It’s a pretty nice venue — not exactly cozy but intimate and very close to the action no matter where you’re seated.
I don’t see how they would be able to squeeze in even 1,000 more seats into that tiny little space, never mind 10,000 seats AND a roof. Seems like something the team owners should have considered when they signed off on the building specs for the stadium.
Audi Field is a mess of compromises that needed to be made if they were to build on that site and not spend like a billion dollars. The biggest issue with they lot is they cannot build down at all because the main power lines for DC run under the field which is why the locker rooms are oddly placed on the south side of the stadium, it was literally the only place they could be. Add to that the ground is all river infill there isn’t a ton of options to expand.
They won’t. This is an early demand to get in on all the money Bowser wants to spend on the debacle for the Commanders. I have no idea on why they would even want to expand as they don’t fill the stadium unless Miami is in town.
If by “royalty,” we mean that DC United used to be super famous and relevant but it was so long ago that we have all forgotten why we have them at all, yes, that is exactly like royalty.
If the US had promotion and relegation like Europe, I feel like DC United would be in a position like Bolton Wanderers or Hertha Berlin, formerly prominent but now bobbing around mostly in the minors. Or worse, end up like Racing Club de Paris’s formerly dominant soccer section and end up as an essentially semipro team totally overshadowed by an upstart Paris SG-type club that muscled its way in from the suburbs.
If the US had promotion and relegation DC United would be out of business.
I think the city of Anaheim needs a study to study the study, at a cost of $2 million, before committing $1 million for just a study.
I’d suggest a blue ribbon panel charged with finding out what happened to the first million. Nobody asks blue ribbon panels what their budget is or where it went. Especially if they delay providing a report for so long that no-one even remembers the panel was created in the first place.
Astoturf tops the stands. Four lanes of traffic surround the stadium. Thousands of people parade outside the game. Miles of smeary trees.
I want more cute dogs and lens flares in vaportecture.
Hmmm. Just takin’ a wild guess here, but did Hochul place Adams under the supervision of Andrew Cuomo and Rudy Guiliani?
That would be sooooo 2025…
Vaportecture inconsistency alert for SacRep!! Looks like a canopy exists in the satellite view, but clearly the renderings show no such feature. Alas the smoke will be squelched in rain, but more to the point is the amount of sun fans will have to endure during long hot summer days. Hooray for hydration breaks!
If they hope to be part of the USL Division One fever dream concept they’ll have to opt in for the 15k capacity plan.
FWIW League One sounds more impressive than Division One, but alas it coins their lower tier squads.