Search Results for: polar park

The Great Worcester Andy Zimbalist Throwdown was so involved that I ended up writing a whole article about it elsewhere, but it ultimately came down to: Zimbalist, the former stadium subsidy skeptic who had started giving testimony-for-hire on both sides of the issue, insisted that Worcester would recoup its expense on a Red Sox Triple-A stadium via taxes generated by new housing that would spring up around it; and pretty much every other economist said it doesn’t usually work that way. “There’s a list a mile long of cities where it hasn’t worked. And there’s a really short list where it has,” said University of San Francisco economist Nola Agha at the time. “Is this development guaranteed? Is it going to happen regardless of if there’s a stock market crash or interest rates go up?”

So how’s that going, you ask, in the three-plus years since the Worcester stadium opened? Welp:

Following news that tax revenues for the independent Polar Park financing account fell short last fiscal year, with the account owing the city general fund $792,000, city councilors had harsh words Tuesday for a developer who appears to be falling short on his obligations to the ballpark district…

“They’ve gotten away with a lot and they’ve put us as a city in a pretty bad position at this point,” District 2 City Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson said.

The city’s stadium fund is supposed to collect property taxes, sales taxes, and building permit fees from development around the stadium, and use it to repay the city’s $146 million in stadium bonds. (It was supposed to be $106 million at the time Zimbalist endorsed the plan, but overruns happen.) But development has lagged as the result of rising inflation — which was largely thanks to Joe Biden’s sanctions on Russia and Bill Clinton’s deregulation of financial derivatives, if you’re keeping score — to the point where developers are now turning down the offer of tax breaks so they can walk away from properties entirely.

The good news, if Worcester city manager Eric Batista is to be believed, is that “we remain confident that the DIF will return significant funds to the municipality’s coffers as new development occurs and certain tax agreements expire.” The bad news is: Even that wouldn’t necessarily help ensure that Worcester taxpayers don’t lose their shirts on this deal. If some of the new housing construction that eventually arrives would have happened with or without the stadium; or if it cannibalizes housing construction that might have gone elsewhere in the city if not for the stadium; or if the cost of building schools for all those new residents adds more to the city expense budget than the new taxes add to receipts, then this could still be a money pit even if all the buildings around the stadium are eventually built, just like other TIF districts elsewhere.

The question now: Will the Worcester Telegram issue a retraction for the anonymous chamber-of-commerce-penned op-ed it ran last year (without fact-checking) claiming that Worcester will be different, because reasons? Your guess is as good as mine, and you can probably guess what my guess is.

One of the pitfalls of the modern internet age with its Meta Insights and Google Analytics is that once you know exactly how many people are reading each story, it’s really tempting to steer news coverage away from what’s actually news toward what will draw the most eyeballs. I can tell you, for example, that any story about the Chicago Bears is going to about boast at least double the number of readers as one about minor-league baseball — whether just mentioning the Bears in a headline and the opening paragraph does the trick, we’re about to find out.

Anyway, this is a story about minor-league baseball, but 1) it’s about the Worcester Red Sox stadium that is costing a minor-league record $150 million while the housing that was supposed to pay for it is scaled back and the whole thing looks like a giant shipping container and is poorly designed in its details, and 2) it features a math error worthy of Spinal Tap and NASA, so you’ll want to read this. No, don’t go wandering off to check NFL scores of teams like the Bears and Bills and (what other teams get a lot of clicks, oh right) Cowboys, stay right here, you won’t be sorry.

The story begins in an article in the Worcester Telegram about why Polar Park isn’t hosting any of the concerts the city had planned for it (if you can’t get around the paywall, Worcester Sucks and I Love It writer Bill Shaner has helpfully tweeted screenshots):

According to “Ballpark Project Fast Facts,” a document posted to the city’s website in summer 2018 that has since been removed, Polar Park “will” host “at least” 125 events per year, including 68 baseball games, “large-scale” events/concerts, road races, collegiate/high school sporting events, fireworks and other community events.

With the second season of the WooSox now finished, there has yet to be a single “large-scale” concert at the park, as originally promised…

“Polar Park replicated Fenway Park to some degree. And in Fenway Park, the only way to get to the center of the park is through a rolled-up doorway at center field that you can drive a vehicle into but, unfortunately, that is only 12 feet high, and large trucks that carry concert production are always 13 feet high or so,” [Worcester Tercentennial Celebration Committee technical consultant Jon] Rosbrook said. “So, consequently, at Fenway Park, all the big equipment stays outside on Lansdowne Street and is either lifted by crane over the Green Monster onto the field, or small pieces can be put onto smaller trucks that can be pulled through that doorway and then unloaded closer to the stage.”

There are other problems with hosting concerts at the ballpark — for one thing, because so much of its 9,508-seat capacity is on the outfield berm, which would be behind the stage, and limited fire exits for seating on the field, concerts there could only hold about 6,000, which is less than most major concert acts would want. But it’s the door mismeasurement thing that is hilarious, because apparently nobody bothered to check this during design and construction, and now it’s built in to a major part of the stadium structure:

And also because Edward Augustus Jr., who as city manager took charge of building this thing, is now downplaying the door issue as something that can easily be fixed, by, I’m not sure, maybe bending the fabric of space-time?

“I heard about the issue about the height thing. I definitely heard about that. Anything can be fixed or resolved. So I can’t imagine that’s a permanent problem. Something needs to be adjusted there. It should be adjusted,” Augustus said.

No, anything can’t be fixed! That’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics!

Anyway, not being able to hold dozens of concerts a year at the WooSox’ park is probably not that huge a deal given that no minor-league parks actually host dozens of concerts a year, but it is a reminder that promises of future events that a stadium will bring should be taken with an enormous grain of salt. And that’s about it, unless … sorry, are you feeling bait-and-switched by all those Bears mentions? Would you feel better if this post had something about the Bears, even if it was trivial, like Freedom of Information Act requests turning up exactly when in 2021 the Bears and Arlington Heights officials first started discussing moving the Bears to the suburbs? Nope, sorry, nothing here about that, this just isn’t that kind of article, go elsewhere for SEO tricks designed to lure you in with mentions of the Bears, Chicago, and the Chicago Bears. Oh, and Soldier Field, that too.

I’m a little pressed for time this morning, but I did want to share with the schadenfreude lovers among you this review of the Worcester Red Sox‘ new $160 million stadium by GoLocalProv architecture critic Will Morgan, which is a master class in well-honed disdain. Let’s start with this:

Its public face is that of an Amazon warehouse or a giant shipping container.

Oof. Though, really, it’s tough to argue:

On the positive side, writes Morgan, “Polar Park is beautifully sited in term of views of
Worcester. You can see the field from all the seats, and the touted mirror image of Fenway is almost believable.” But then he shifts gears to the bigger question of whether it can bring about a renaissance for downtown Worcester — something that you may recall has been a bone of contention ever since team owners employed economist Andy Zimbalist to make that claim — and rules: Naaah.

When the novelty wears off in a few years (as studies of Triple-A parks suggest it will), the aftertaste will be one of debt. What did the Commonwealth of Massachusetts get for their contribution, and when will Worcester’s outlay of bonded dollars see a return?…

Worcester heard the siren song of flimflam like that of the Music Man, with the seductive appeal of a magic solution to urban ills. Putting all your faith and dollars in a stadium was an exhausted planning trope decades ago. Will Polar Park really hold 125 events a year? Will it ever pay its own way? Will it attract middle class families to move to Worcester? Is this the best way to spruce up a city with an image problem?…

Right around the corner is Green Street, a somewhat gritty, crowded, but lively area of juice, coffee, and booze bars, a public market, ethnic shops and bodegas, and Thai, Mexican, and Vietnamese restaurants. Is this the kind of real city that will be replaced by the new development?

Excellent questions, all, even if not exactly architectural ones.

It’s also worth noting, of course, that this article appeared on a news site in Rhode Island, which is more likely to slag the new WooSox stadium because they’re still stinging from Worcester using it to lure their baseball team away after 48 years. Still, his observations are valid ones, and it’s hard to look at the included photos without thinking, “$160 million? Really?” I mean:

Worcester’s not too far from me, so I’ll try to provide a firsthand report at some point. (Or maybe a secondhand report if I can find someone even closer to pay a visit.) Honestly, word that there are decent Vietnamese restaurants in town is a bigger draw to me than yet another generic minor-league ballpark — I should ask Zimbalist if that factored into his economic impact studies.

The Worcester Red Sox are about to open their new $157 million stadium — okay, about to open when the minor-league season starts, which isn’t until May, but anyway, isn’t two months in advance still a good time for the local newspaper to write a piece about how great the place will be once it’s finished? The local newspaper that is owned by the owner of the WooSox’ parent club? Surely this will be a reasoned and objective assessment, so let’s dig in:

Worcester didn’t want its new stadium to be Fenway Park.

Easily accomplished. Moving on!

There’s capacity for 9,508 fans, but the seating bowl of 6,000 seats — all with cup holders — is almost entirely around the infield.

That’s true of almost every minor-league ballpark. And, actually, most major-league ballparks, which have a grandstand wrapped around home plate, and usually at most some more cursory bleachers in the outfield. Glad to hear about the cupholders, though, because if there’s one thing American sports fans hate, it’s having to put their beers on the ground.

Polar Park will be unique. There’s a Woo Shop where purchases are recorded on an app without any checkout or waiting in line. There are heart-shaped light towers and a heart adorned on the side of each seat.

“Without any checkout” sounds like the Amazon store system, which is made possible by an insane number of surveillance cameras, so maybe that’s what the team has planned here? One hopes they will be heart-shaped cameras, at least, to honor Worcester’s nickname of “the Heart of the Commonwealth,” because it’s so close to the middle of the state, which, I guess?

On June 12, 1880, Worcester pitcher Lee Richmond threw the first perfect game in Major League history, against the Cleveland Blues.

Interesting! But not actually about the stadium, if we’re getting technical here.

“One of the things we’ve been good about is making sure that there is a customization factor in every ballpark, so it looks and tastes and feels and smells like the city in which it is located,” Lucchino says.

I’m not sure which is more disturbing, the notion of a stadium that “tastes like” Worcester, or what the construction crew needed to do to ensure quality control on that.

They could have built the stadium on flat land, but instead they shoehorned it into the historic Canal District with multiple levels, a nod to Worcester’s three deckers and the up-and-coming downtown restaurants.

Yes, they could have built on flat land, saving themselves and Worcester taxpayers $58 million. But they chose to build on a hill, because … I dunno, say something about restaurants, the Globe will print whatever we tell them.

“So you should be able to experience a two-dimensional ballpark. Both a low-priced ballpark where tickets are eight or nine dollars, and we have higher-priced tickets that come with more creature comforts,” says [WooSox owner and former Boston Red Sox CEO Larry] Lucchino.

That is not what two-dimensional means.

A long ball hit to left field could land in an open boxcar and wind up in Chicago.

Freight rail companies don’t leave boxcar doors open anymore, but nice thought!

The home bullpen is just a few feet past the dugout and built into the stands. To sit in a box seat sandwiched between the dugout and the bullpen is unique. Fans get an umpire’s view of pitchers warming up, and hear the pop of the catcher’s mitt up close and personal.

Seats right next to the bullpen actually sound kind of neat, though also something that can be experienced at a bunch of other stadiums, including Fenway Park. Though in Worcester this view will be reserved for high-paying patrons, so maybe that’s the unique part here.

Not mentioned at all in the article: The controversy over the stadium’s high public cost, not to mention the overruns that now have taxpayers on the hook for $146.8 million, or more than eight times what it cost to build Fenway Park in 1912, adjusted for inflation. On the other hand, the original Fenway seats didn’t have cupholders or surveillance cameras watching your every shopping move, and who can put a price on things like that? (A: Larry Lucchino, and that price was $146.8 million.)

The city of Worcester issued an update on Friday (actually dated tomorrow, but whatever) on its new Red Sox Triple-A stadium, which is full of small-type charts and lists and generally pretty dry. But Grant Welker of the Worcester Business Journal got out his abacus and went to work on the numbers, and was able to report this:

The cost of building Polar Park, the new home of the minor league Worcester Red Sox, has risen to $157 million, Worcester officials said Friday afternoon, reflecting cost increases stemming largely from the coronavirus pandemic.

With the increase, the public facility will become the most expensive minor league baseball stadium ever built, surpassing the inflation adjusted $153-million home of the Las Vegas Aviators.

May I be the first to say: Yikes!

The WooSox owners are paying for the latest $17.3 million in cost overruns, so at least this won’t cost Worcester more than the $100 million or so in subsidies that were approved back in 2018. Still, how on earth did this project’s costs balloon so rapidly?

The last time the stadium ran into overruns, it was $30 million in added costs that, according to Welker, mostly stemmed from “unexpected costs borne by the city for obtaining adjacent parcels, moving businesses and knocking down buildings to make way for the ballpark.” (Also because Worcester officials forgot how hills work. Let us never forget that.) This time it’s undefined pandemic-related costs: Some this appears to be “we had to stop work for seven weeks and still need to finish by spring 2021 (assuming there’s baseball in spring 2021)” and some of it something about supply chains mumble mumble, but still, $17.3 million seems like a lot for that.

The WooSox also have agreed to a lease, which is good because nobody remembered to do that before approving the subsidies and starting construction; I haven’t read through it fully yet, but it looks unremarkable. And the update also includes a whole bunch of new renderings, so let’s enjoy some of those now:

That’s unremarkable enough, though it’s amusing that some ad sponsors have been specified (Shaw’s grocery store) while others still just say “SPONSOR.” (Where the first-base coaching box should be. I’m not sure that’s allowable under baseball rules.) Also the team logo appears to be a smiley face with arms and legs. And Red Sox two-time All-Star shortstop Xander Bogaerts appears to have been demoted to the minors, or maybe is there on a rehab assignment. Otherwise, nothing too alarming.

Now it’s getting alarming. Why are there giant statues of Red Sox championship rings, and what does that small child and his mom find so fascinating about them? Other than that, looks like a pleasant enough plaza, though I’m not sure it’s advisable for the couple at the far right to walk through it barefoot.

What the hell? As a parent, I know something about what kids want in a baseball-themed playground, and it would either be 1) a miniature ballpark where you can play wiffle ball or 2) a big-ass slide. Baseball-themed boulders and a basepath covered in giant golf tees seem like odd design choices, and that’s even before we get to the smiley-face mascot (which must be inhabited by either a person with an abnormally short torso or with no head) playing keepaway with a baseball bat with a small child. We are well on our way to Boschian hellscape here.

This image, of a grassy hill outside the ballpark called Home Plate Hill because it’s kind of adjacent to the home plate grandstand, I guess, is unremarkable except for the woman at left who appears to be taking a photo of her dog using a large cinnamon roll as a camera.

Big Blue Bug Solutions is, as you might expect, a pest control service. It has apparently contracted to show off its solutions for pest removal by sponsoring an area where a select few fans can enjoy close-up views of the game without any protective netting, the better to be squashed like bugs by any foul balls.

Okay, it turns out Xander Bogaerts hasn’t been demoted — or rather, he’s been demoted to an unearthly realm where various Red Sox players of the last 50 years are all consigned to play out their declining years in a minor-league ballpark. Also Jim Rice has to play first base which he never once did in real life, even though Carl Yastrzemski, who did play lots of first base, could easily be moved there from Rice’s preferred position of left field. Clearly whoever constructed this image really has it in for Jim Rice — look, he’s even batting 9th, while the unheralded Jarrod Saltalamacchia bats cleanup — which is fair, Jim Rice was one of the most overrated players in baseball history.

Finally, we have the Ecotarium, Museum of Science and Nature, which seems to consist entirely of an exhibit on pitch speed, which you would think would at least include a radar gun and a place where kids could try out their feeble throwing arms and learn something about how radar works or something. But no! It’s just a cardboard cutout of a kid throwing a ball, at a distance of maybe ten feet from a photograph of a catcher. I’m almost willing to believe that this is supposed to be a real kid but the colorist screwed up, but if so why is he being forced to deliver his pitch over a counter? And won’t errant throws grievously injure those two older kids nearby admiring the ceiling? Oh wait, I get it — the science here is medical science, and kids will be able to see it in action up close and personal when EMTs have to rush to the aid of someone who’s just been concussed by a baseball delivered to their noggin at close range! I take it back, these people totally know what will entertain a small child — can’t wait to make my first visit!

The Worcester Red Sox stadium project has always been on the pricey side as minor-league baseball stadiums go, both in terms of projected construction cost ($90 million) and projected public subsidy (around $100 million — yep, the builders were set to get more in tax kickbacks and infrastructure funds than they actually spent on construction — so news that it’s facing significant cost overruns is not really what anyone needed to hear:

Construction costs for Polar Park have increased by $9.5 million over initial estimates, while costs to acquire the properties needed for the ballpark, relocate businesses and prepare the site for development have run roughly $20 million more than what was anticipated.

That has prompted city officials to negotiate changes to the agreements with the ballclub that will be playing at Polar Park starting in 2021 and for the private development that will be built as part of the overall $240 million redevelopment of the Kelley Square/Canal District area.

These “negotiated changes” are that the team will cover the $9.5 million in increased construction costs, while the city will cover the $20 million in added land acquisition and site prep costs. Part of the team’s costs (according to the city manager’s report that starts on page 59 here) will be covered by a doubling of the 50-cent ticket fee that was planned for WooSox games; the city’s costs will be funded by increasing the size of the tax increment financing district where future rises in property tax revenues will be siphoned off and used to pay for land acquisition costs.

Worcester city manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. told the Worcester Telegram that the stadium “will continue to pay for itself” and that no “existing” taxpayer money will be diverted to pay for it, which is a clever bit of wordplay to get around the fact that $20 million in future tax money that would have gone to the city will now instead go to site prep costs — and if tax revenues don’t rise as much as expected, Worcester will absolutely have to dip into existing funds to cover the shortfall.

The best part of all this, though, is Augustus’s explanation for why the city’s site costs have risen so much:

“Due to a number of unknown factors, particularly related to business relocation costs, and the need for a more complicated retaining wall system resulting from the steep grade of the site, those costs total $20.69 million,” Augustus said.

I’m sorry, did you say “the steep grade of the site”? You mean despite years of planning, nobody noticed until now that the site is on a hill, and that when you cut into a hill you need to build retaining walls to keep the hill from falling on your new stadium? Clearly this was an unknown and unforeseeable factor, and not an example of lowballing projected costs so that local elected officials (and one economist, though not most) could think it was a better deal!