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Marshall is getting 2 new HD scoreboards, a new sound system and video strips (or whatever you call them) installed over the summer in the football stadium. It is supposed to be done in time for the WVU game this year. This will make the games in Huntington much better to attend and will help add more to the game day atmosphere. Can't wait to see this finished. Here's a couple of pics.
Just in time to watch the replays of the Mountaineers
scoring touchdowns this September! (just kidding...
well, not really)
It's a nice addition to the Joan, and my understanding
is it involved a 10 year media commitment.
I think you and I may be in agreement here... for possibly the first time since the last MU-WVU discussion!
Anyways, glad to see MU getting those improvements, but it's still odd that they've never sold out a single game outside of WVU... who needs who again?
But seriously, I root for all WV teams, even if that includes our little brother. Hell, aside from the football aspect, MU isn't that bad. Huntington has a nice sort of atmosphere for a WV city, and stands apart from morgantown by having a traditional roaring 20's vibe to it. I honestly think the town could do great things if they attracted a white collar industry (blue collar is too far gone). Nice downtown, nice grid system, near the water, cheap housing. Hell, give me a job and I'm there tomorrow!
We have to be careful here, or our buddy will jump on us
with all fours, but for Huntington to really progress they
will have to change the mindset there. They are still
largely looking for someone else to come in and do it for
them. That will always bring about marginal results.
Still, the scoreboard is a start in the right direction. Who
knows, it might bring about more improvements.
Jesco, you are so right about Huntington's potential. Create Huntington and other local entities are doing what they can to revitalize Huntington and to make it more attractive for people and businesses. They recognize that the creative economy is the future and they are doing what they can to focus on that. Did you see the post about the $250 million development being planned for Huntington and Marshall? New athletic facilities, shops and restaurants, federal training facilities and more research facilities are all planned. That would be a great step forward indeed. Here's the link if you didn't see it.
I see those as highly positive possibilities. They have
a lot of hoops to jump through to bring all that about,
but if they can even do part of it the results will be
on the positive side.
The only thing that troubles me about projects like this
is there is sometimes the notion of doing them to create
demand, not that they are demand driven. There are
huge sums of public funding involved in these endeavors,
and areas that have been experiencing economic decline
are hungry for anything that seems positive. I remember
that from my experience in Wheeling. It is only ultimately
a positive if the actual use matches up with the cost
outlay, and someone would have to pay for it. If that's
going to be the taxpayers, they have a right for a full
cost benefit analysis.
They need to ask questions like... how will the rents stack
up with alternatives in the area? Will it be like Pullman
where you can rent something across the street for half
the price? Will it detract from what is already in place in
the area (hurt existing businesses to a great degree) or
is there sufficient demand demonstrated that such
developments would provide mostly growth and actually
suppliment existing businesses?
Tim is right there, and I'm sure he has a better handle on
those things than me. From my perspective it would seem
to benefit Marshall more than Huntington per se because
they are desperate for a baseball field and lack the resources
to develop one on their own. JMO, and it is certainly an
uneducated opinion. Overall it looks like a big positive.
This project is most definately being driven by demand. It will benefit Marshall but will equally benefit Huntington as what is currently a useless area would be turned into something very useful. The sports and research facilities being built for Marshall are needed for the continued growth of those programs. The baseball team and track team don't really have anywhere acceptable to compete right now. The federal maritime law enforcement training facility will be one of the first of its kind in the country and I'm sure that the transit training facility has a need as well. Just like the last private partnership with MU, I'm sure this will bring more students and staff as well. Thanks to the other project, MU is talking another record freshman class, a potential record university enrollment and being at capacity with current facilities. That's good for Marshall, Huntington and the state.
With regards to the retail/restaurant space, they are doing feasibility studies to make sure that they will do well in that development. There is no other direct retail space in that area and being closer to Marshall, it would likely see more foot traffic from those students and for those visiting for gameday. I don't see this new development as competition for downtown or Pullman, rather it would be something else to draw people downtown. And with regards to funding, $50 million is all that they have requested so far for federal money. I'm sure that would be for the federal facilities and brownfield clean-up of the area.
Some hurdles do still exist but from what I've heard, they've cleared many of them already. With the number of entities behind this and as long as they have been working on it, I would say there is a high likelihood that this will happen.
This project is most definately being driven by demand. It will benefit Marshall but will equally benefit Huntington as what is currently a useless area would be turned into something very useful. The sports and research facilities being built for Marshall are needed for the continued growth of those programs. The baseball team and track team don't really have anywhere acceptable to compete right now. The federal maritime law enforcement training facility will be one of the first of its kind in the country and I'm sure that the transit training facility has a need as well. Just like the last private partnership with MU, I'm sure this will bring more students and staff as well. Thanks to the other project, MU is talking another record freshman class, a potential record university enrollment and being at capacity with current facilities. That's good for Marshall, Huntington and the state.
With regards to the retail/restaurant space, they are doing feasibility studies to make sure that they will do well in that development. There is no other direct retail space in that area and being closer to Marshall, it would likely see more foot traffic from those students and for those visiting for gameday. I don't see this new development as competition for downtown or Pullman, rather it would be something else to draw people downtown. And with regards to funding, $50 million is all that they have requested so far for federal money. I'm sure that would be for the federal facilities and brownfield clean-up of the area.
Some hurdles do still exist but from what I've heard, they've cleared many of them already. With the number of entities behind this and as long as they have been working on it, I would say there is a high likelihood that this will happen.
As great as those sound, I will ask you to be cautiously optimistic about the end result. I watched, with great interest as a morgantown resident, the proposal by the Monty Warner bunch (slumlords named McCoy6 in morgantown) when they put a rather grandiose urban community plan for a few hundred million dollars through city council. They promised a mixture of mid rise to high rise residential/commercial properties with a pedestrian mall. They submitted this plan with the sole purpose of getting it approved for construction and ultimately getting state funding or really cheap loans.
Long story short, 5 years later, and this new urban reinvention of morgantown that would be WV's first planned community turned into exactly what they wanted all along: to be able to level low density, cheap student housing, and put up poorly built, modular mid rise apartment buildings with fake granite that they can charge rich NJ kids 800/month to live in per roomate.
Not a single thing was ever built that was part of the plan, aside from the ripoff housing. Monty Warner just bull****ted the entire town with false promises just to gain cheap(er) access to zoning and land.
I should also mention that Warner was the republican candidate against "Status Quo Joe" during the governor's race of 05 or 06. As much as you may dislike manchin, if you ever lived under McCoy6 (as I did), you would understand what a sleazy disgusting company they are.
They are probably the town's worst landlords to be sure. But, if you know anything about politics in West Virginia you know there is a good chance the run against Manchin was for show only. They are probably in cahoots somehow. The town is trying to deal with McCoy6 as you know.
I agree with you these schemes seldom turn out as advertised. That's the reason for some skepticism. We had a similar scheme in Wheeling for the downtown area and the only person making out on it was the former mayor (a Manchin buddy) who managed to buy up tons of property on the cheap. Many suppose he will sell it back to the city for a huge profit. The development never materialized, and they ran off existing businesses in the process.
Ohio County did have better luck with the "Highlands" development as a public private combination, but it is located outside of the city limits near the PA line. In this economy, projects that don't already have financing lined up might be in for a tough go of it.
Tim, you mentioned the research funding for Marshall as being demand driven. Being a Marshall alum, it is news to me that there has been such a spike in research there. Are you certain about that? In general, research funding is hard to come by in this economy. Will the Government be paying to operate the Maritime Training Facility? Who is building the baseball field, and will there be a minor league team using it or is Marshall essentially getting one provided for them by the town? Those are questions that cross my mind.
Oh, to be sure, I'm cautiously optimistic about any project that sounds good. You can never really count on something until its up and running so to speak. But several local leaders have been working long and hard on this project and it doesn't have your typical hurdles. They tried initially with local developers and a smaller project but they couldn't get it to happen financially so they went with a bigger, out-of-state company who came with a larger project. Due to the industrial nature of the site, the land isn't cheap either. That's why they are looking for federal grants for brownfield clean up. They are planning to take an unused, old industrial site and turn it into something useful for Huntington and Marshall. Even if it doesn't end up being as big as it potentially could be, having any part of what is planned to go there is better than an empty factory.
And Marshall has put a big emphasis on research. They are adding research space with most new construction as the space that they have fills up quickly. Here are some links for what Marshall is doing/plans to do with research. As you can see, they are very active with in that field.
Marshall University Awarded $930,000 Grant for Research Equipment - State Journal - STATEJOURNAL.com (http://statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=72963&catid=182 - broken link)
And with regards to your other questions, here's a quote from a gentleman from the WV Port Authority about the Maritime Law Enforcement training center: "Donovan said the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga., is looking to build a residential training center with a maritime focus. Huntington would be a perfect fit because of the resources that Marshall can provide and because the Port of Huntington's designation as the largest inland port in the country, Donovan said." So the federal government would be building and operating that and the transit training facility.
With regards to the ballfield, the developer is building it mainly for Marshall but there are plans for either a minor league team or a wooden bat league. So it would have multiple uses.
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