Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
But we are not really debating what happens to the land the stadium itself is on. Obviously that becomes the stadium. We are debating what happens to the areas near by. And there is no denying that areas around stadiums suffer compared to similar areas without stadiums.
This AFCS / Turner nor the Dome did any good for Summerhill, Mechanicsville, Peoplestown, Downtown, or Vine City. STP will not benefit Cumberland. There is nothing magic about a suburban office park that makes it more able to benefit from a stadium than a downtown area or intown neighborhoods.
Summerhill lost homes and businesses that weren't replaced. Cumberland isn't losing anything (but county money). Summerhill became discontinuous with the stadium. That's the issue that Cumberland won't have. Residents on Fraser Street suddenly had a much longer distance to walk to commercial areas and essentially made the neighborhood residential only with scattered commercial (similar to areas like Kirkwood, etc). Completely changed the area. Until the cranes showed up you couldn't even tell at first that land near the Galleria had been cleared for the stadium. Nothing changed, no businesses gone, no houses gone. No change in the street layout, no suddenly longer drive or walk (for all 5 people walking in that area). I won't pretend to know that the benefits that come about, but Cumberland at least has not been harmed to the extent of Summerhill or even been remotely altered.
As for the others, Vine City is basically cut off from downtown thanks to the stadium, convention center and arena and the whole rail mess. I also don't think the downtown area east of the stadium is that bad off. It's the tourist area for the city already.
Both your examples are car-centric development, this commercial corridor was built on the human scale and allowed residents to walk from their homes to shop, eat, etc. Several times posters want to say, walking/biking to run errands is not feasible, but with more human-scale development, like this and what all cities and towns had before WW2, that is absolutely possible.
Very true. But that's also why Cumberland won't be affected like Summerhill.
Nationals Stadium helped Navy Yard explode. That area of DC in 10x nicer than it was before the stadium.
DC did a good job of minimizing the damage done by the stadium. It is right next to a metro station. But make no mistake, Navy Yards would be thriving just as much if not more without the stadium.
Just like the highways getting put through also damaged intown neighborhoods near the stadium, there are much bigger factors at play here. Summerhill still would have declined without the stadiums being built there just not as much.
Any time something new gets built within a mile of STP people will still cheer it as being a result of the Braves move. When in reality there would have been just as much and likely more development without it. How do we know this? Any study not paid for by a sports team says at best, a stadium has no impact and the tax dollars spent on the stadium are just a waste. But many say it does harm.
Summerhill lost homes and businesses that weren't replaced. Cumberland isn't losing anything (but county money). Summerhill became discontinuous with the stadium. That's the issue that Cumberland won't have. Residents on Fraser Street suddenly had a much longer distance to walk to commercial areas and essentially made the neighborhood residential only with scattered commercial (similar to areas like Kirkwood, etc). Completely changed the area. Until the cranes showed up you couldn't even tell at first that land near the Galleria had been cleared for the stadium. Nothing changed, no businesses gone, no houses gone. No change in the street layout, no suddenly longer drive or walk (for all 5 people walking in that area). I won't pretend to know that the benefits that come about, but Cumberland at least has not been harmed to the extent of Summerhill or even been remotely altered.
As for the others, Vine City is basically cut off from downtown thanks to the stadium, convention center and arena and the whole rail mess. I also don't think the downtown area east of the stadium is that bad off. It's the tourist area for the city already.
Sure, the build out won't bulldoze existing buildings in Cumberland. But it will push out future development that would have occurred in Cumberland otherwise.
But we are not really debating what happens to the land the stadium itself is on. Obviously that becomes the stadium. We are debating what happens to the areas near by. And there is no denying that areas around stadiums suffer compared to similar areas without stadiums.
This AFCS / Turner nor the Dome did any good for Summerhill, Mechanicsville, Peoplestown, Downtown, or Vine City. STP will not benefit Cumberland. There is nothing magic about a suburban office park that makes it more able to benefit from a stadium than a downtown area or intown neighborhoods.
I'm no fan of the stadium move, even though I rarely ever go to Braves games, but I think you are just wrong here. The reason most stadium developments, such as The Dome, Turner, GWCC, etc kill the areas around them is that they are plopped right in the middle of the landscape, cutting it apart and reducing the ability for traffic to move or for people to get where they are going. SunTrust Park tucks back into a side lot, removed from the main area. It's bordered on two sides by interstates, meaning that no real walkable development could be built on those sides anyway.
I don't see the Suntrust Park killing the area because of the fact that's it's a stadium. It's not cutting apart connected areas. It's not making anything less walkable. It's adding development and places to go, actually creating more walkability. Yeah...I just don't get where you're coming from.
I'm no fan of the stadium move, even though I rarely ever go to Braves games, but I think you are just wrong here. The reason most stadium developments, such as The Dome, Turner, GWCC, etc kill the areas around them is that they are plopped right in the middle of the landscape, cutting it apart and reducing the ability for traffic to move or for people to get where they are going. SunTrust Park tucks back into a side lot, removed from the main area. It's bordered on two sides by interstates, meaning that no real walkable development could be built on those sides anyway.
I don't see the Suntrust Park killing the area because of the fact that's it's a stadium. It's not cutting apart connected areas. It's not making anything less walkable. It's adding development and places to go, actually creating more walkability. Yeah...I just don't get where you're coming from.
STP turns it's back on a planned trail along Windy Ridge that will follow Interstate North Pkwy to connect to Rottenwood Trail. Users of the trail will not be met with mixed use or easy access to the development.
I'm no fan of the stadium move, even though I rarely ever go to Braves games, but I think you are just wrong here. The reason most stadium developments, such as The Dome, Turner, GWCC, etc kill the areas around them is that they are plopped right in the middle of the landscape, cutting it apart and reducing the ability for traffic to move or for people to get where they are going. SunTrust Park tucks back into a side lot, removed from the main area. It's bordered on two sides by interstates, meaning that no real walkable development could be built on those sides anyway.
I don't see the Suntrust Park killing the area because of the fact that's it's a stadium. It's not cutting apart connected areas. It's not making anything less walkable. It's adding development and places to go, actually creating more walkability. Yeah...I just don't get where you're coming from.
Here is an example of why surrounding properties will shift towards focusing on parking and other services that only target stadium customers on the 80 days a year:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jsvh
Some math to demonstrate how parking lots will push out other business and residents surrounding the new stadium:
Then let's assume the parcel isn't making a dime outside of the 81 home games a year.
And even though they probably can get $20 a space being right next door, let's assume they only get $15.
That gets you: 150 * 81 * $15 = $182,250 a year just by letting your acre lot sit empty.
Even if we assume that acre is going for the $2M suggested above, a 30 year mortgage on that is about $10K a month. That leaves you with a $60k, 50% profit margin per year while doing nothing more than holding the land. Not bad considering most of the people that buy these lots are really just looking to break even each year and make their profit selling the land after holding it for a couple decades.
Even things like hiring guys to monitor the lot, keeping the lot freshly paved, (or other things to be a good neighbor that most of these lots won't be doing) will not cost more than a few thousand a year or bring the profit margin down out of the double digits.
What other businesses can expect to come near a profit margin like that on land costing $2M an acre in the suburbs?
See how easy it is for the demand for parking to drive up the cost of land and create a wasteland surrounding stadiums?
Cumberland was part of the largest office market in the metro. It's development was on par with perimeter and even Buckhead and Midtown some years. Now it is not that all development is going to stop in Cumberland and it will become a ghost town in ten years. It won't, there will still be some new things built and the fan boys will do back flips and praise the Braves. But in reality there would have been more going on in the area without that, especially if they had used that tax money for something like high capacity transit instead.
STP turns it's back on a planned trail along Windy Ridge that will follow Interstate North Pkwy to connect to Rottenwood Trail. Users of the trail will not be met with mixed use or easy access to the development.
Looking at Cobb County's trail map, I don't see a planned trail that follows Interstate North and comes over the Interstate to the stadium area, but there certainly could be (except for the Windy Ridge bridge not really being sufficient for a trail). There is a trail that shows running along Windy Ridge, presumably along the north side. You might have to cross a street, but I don't see how this isn't easy access to the development. Does it need to run to home plate?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jsvh
Here is an example of why surrounding properties will shift towards focusing on parking and other services that only target stadium customers on the 80 days a year:
Cumberland was part of the largest office market in the metro. It's development was on par with perimeter and even Buckhead and Midtown some years. Now it is not that all development is going to stop in Cumberland and it will become a ghost town in ten years. It won't, there will still be some new things built and the fan boys will do back flips and praise the Braves. But in reality there would have been more going on in the area without that, especially if they had used that tax money for something like high capacity transit instead.
I would much rather them use the money for transit. But Cobb hasn't done or wanted that in 40 years...why would they start now?
As far as parking, are you saying that the existing businesses will close, get torn down, and made into parking instead? Because, otherwise, there's really not a whole lot of other room for large expanses of parking. Oddly enough, a decent amount of residential development has been happening right there. I really think you're overblowing the doom and gloom. Although, judging by your posts, I think you might be one of those "if it's not ultra-high-density, no-car, totally-walkable development, then it's a failure" types.
The parcel of land surrounded by the interstates, Herodian Way and Cobb Parkway has barely changed in 23 years. In 23 years, only two small office buildings and a couple of apartment compexes have been added, and something town down some 15-20 years ago. Other than that? Nothing. So, maybe, some day, something would have happened on this land. I rather liked the woods and pond. I would have been fine if they had left it like that. I don't think the stadium will provide any major benefit for the area, but I still think your dire predictions are quite off base.
As far as parking, are you saying that the existing businesses will close, get torn down, and made into parking instead?
Yes. That is what I am expecting for many businesses near by in the coming years. Just like what happened in Summerhill and near other stadiums.
But you seem to be exagerating my "predictions" I am not saying nothing new will ever get built in Cobb again or all the office towers will get bulldozed on opening day to become parking lots. No. But as businesses change due to higher rent or just time the owners will consider what to replace it with. If it is not a business that is dependant on stadium traffic there is no reason for a business to pay extra to locate near the stadium. So the owner sell parking in the mean time while waiting for a tenant to come that can offer more profit than he is making from parking. Of course that is a hard profit margin to beat so after the building starts to fall into disrepair it is bulldozed for more parking while the site waits for a giant high-rise redevelopment to come that can actually afford to pay more profit than parking can. And just like so many surface parking lot sites in Downtown, Vine City, and Summerhill that redevelopment offer never comes.
It is not that these land owners are part of some evil plot with all of us that are not fans of this move, it is just business. That becomes the best and easiest way for them to maximize the profits of their land.
It is not a quick change. But the area will slowly see less development and over the years that will feed on itself. Soon that office market falls from the #1 in the metro and the existing office space falls from class A to B, B to C as investement slows and other areas become the place to work.
Cumberland will see a decline over the next 30 years not unlike Downtown saw from 1970 - 2000. Sure new things will be built, but it will fall from its top spot and will become an increasinly less attractive place to live and work as many of the buildings age or are replaced by parking lots. Of course the stadium is just a part of the forces driving that. There is also the overall trend of relocations back into town and near transit. Just like downtown's decline was not just stadiums, but more so White Flight.
Looking at Cobb County's trail map, I don't see a planned trail that follows Interstate North and comes over the Interstate to the stadium area, but there certainly could be (except for the Windy Ridge bridge not really being sufficient for a trail). There is a trail that shows running along Windy Ridge, presumably along the north side. You might have to cross a street, but I don't see how this isn't easy access to the development. Does it need to run to home plate?
I would much rather them use the money for transit. But Cobb hasn't done or wanted that in 40 years...why would they start now?
As far as parking, are you saying that the existing businesses will close, get torn down, and made into parking instead? Because, otherwise, there's really not a whole lot of other room for large expanses of parking. Oddly enough, a decent amount of residential development has been happening right there. I really think you're overblowing the doom and gloom. Although, judging by your posts, I think you might be one of those "if it's not ultra-high-density, no-car, totally-walkable development, then it's a failure" types.
The parcel of land surrounded by the interstates, Herodian Way and Cobb Parkway has barely changed in 23 years. In 23 years, only two small office buildings and a couple of apartment compexes have been added, and something town down some 15-20 years ago. Other than that? Nothing. So, maybe, some day, something would have happened on this land. I rather liked the woods and pond. I would have been fine if they had left it like that. I don't think the stadium will provide any major benefit for the area, but I still think your dire predictions are quite off base.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
