Saint Pauls Saints downtown St Paul stadium moving closer to realization. (Minneapolis: best suburbs, buying)

[ocsid]

I'm generally in favor of stadium projects, but this one is just stupid, and more or less St. Paul saying that they want a piece of the pie with Minneapolis getting a new Vikings stadium and a remodeled Target Center (never mind that it will never be as good a building as the Xcel, simply based on design alone.)

The charm of the Saints is the whole minor league experience. Tailgating, the train running behind the outfield fence, etc. The game is an afterthought. All this is going to do is make it a second tier Target Field with no tailgating downtown.

What they should have done, is torn down Midway (because it really is a dump), and built a new ballpark on the site for both the Saints and the Gopher baseball team. The site is only a few blocks from the St. Paul campus, and the Siebert Field site could be put to much better use as space is at a premium on the Minneapolis campus. There would be very little conflict in dates because the Gophers season is in the Spring, and the Saints play short-season summer ball. Now we're getting two new small ballparks that really don't do as much for either team as a joint stadium would have done.

[HiFi]

What exactly is wrong with Midway Field? Am I missing something here? All of those fond memories I have of enjoying a game at Midway Field must be betraying me and in fact I must have had a terrible time due to the great shortcomings of the venue as a functioning baseball field. Pathetic.

[Ghengis]

Originally Posted by HiFi

What exactly is wrong with Midway Field? Am I missing something here? All of those fond memories I have of enjoying a game at Midway Field must be betraying me and in fact I must have had a terrible time due to the great shortcomings of the venue as a functioning baseball field. Pathetic.

you must be joking, Midway is not fit to host a little league game much less accomodate 6000 fans willing to pay good money to be subjected to long concession waits, crumbling cement and porta potty restrooms.

Mike Veeck championing stadium for St. Paul Saints - Page 1 - News - Minneapolis - City Pages

[HiFi]

Well we disagree. I think its a joke to think that minor league baseball is about creature comforts and spa treatment. God forbid a porta potty, we'll all die of e coli. If someone needs to pee in a designer restroom, and wants lecordonbleu concessions...well then they should pay designer ticket prices to fund it, not march to the tax payer with their hand out so they can lounge more luxuriously while watching the game.

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by HiFi

Well we disagree. I think its a joke to think that minor league baseball is about creature comforts and spa treatment. God forbid a porta potty, we'll all die of e coli. If someone needs to pee in a designer restroom, and wants lecordonbleu concessions...well then they should pay designer ticket prices to fund it, not march to the tax payer with their hand out so they can lounge more luxuriously while watching the game.

Go walk around dowtown St. Paul any time after 3 pm.

[Ghengis]

Originally Posted by HiFi

Well we disagree. I think its a joke to think that minor league baseball is about creature comforts and spa treatment. God forbid a porta potty, we'll all die of e coli. If someone needs to pee in a designer restroom, and wants lecordonbleu concessions...well then they should pay designer ticket prices to fund it, not march to the tax payer with their hand out so they can lounge more luxuriously while watching the game.

my guess is that you don't go to many Saints games

[ocsid]

I haven't been to Midway in a few years (Saints games are an excuse to drink outside in the summer, and I have a deck for that), but even 5-10 years ago, the place was in poor shape. It was never built to sustain the kind of traffic that it has since minor league baseball came to town. It was built for amateur baseball a handful of times a year (replacing the old Midway stadium that was built as St. Paul's answer to the Met in the race to get an MLB team). It's pretty much outlived what a building like that was expected to do, and that's fine. My issue is moving the team downtown.

[GBCommenter]

Originally Posted by HiFi

Well we disagree. I think its a joke to think that minor league baseball is about creature comforts and spa treatment. God forbid a porta potty, we'll all die of e coli. If someone needs to pee in a designer restroom, and wants lecordonbleu concessions...well then they should pay designer ticket prices to fund it, not march to the tax payer with their hand out so they can lounge more luxuriously while watching the game.

Originally Posted by knke0204

Go walk around dowtown St. Paul any time after 3 pm.

On the question of whether a new stadium is needed/wanted irrespective of who pays, I'll defer to the market. If the market desires a Target Field Jr., so be it. If I don't like that atmosphere I can choose to not go there (or decide I like it enough anyway).

That said, I think HiFi has two points. First HiFi was saying it's not like all of us when we go are crying and gnashing our teeth. I never walked through the tailgaters and saw many wailing loudly about how they HAD to go into pits of hell or something. Everyone appeared to be having a good time.

Second (and more important), if the demand is for something different let those who desire it pay for it (and profit or fail on their own business decisions). In a slightly different context, let's say I come to you house and see the fancy state-of-the-art riding lawnmower you're using as compared to my old beat up push mower. I say I really want your lawnmower because it's so wonderful and I'm going to be able to take care of my yard so much better now. I say you'll benefit from the nicer neighborhood you now live in and get on your lawnmower and drive away with it, what would you call that? Just what taxpayer funded stadiums are - theft. Again, Paul will never complain about Peter being robbed but doesn't make it any more moral.

Perhaps if we weren't making the taxpayer pay for every special project under the sun for someone else's benefit there would be a "St. Paul after 3PM" that wasn't a ghost town. Only so much money that can be spent "for the common good"...

[wherespankakehouse?]

At the end of the day, I'm a believer that a vibrant downtown core is important to a metro that's among the 15th largest in the country (and to some extent, the entire state). In the case of MSP, we have two distinct cores. One just received a top rated major league ballpark, what will be a top 5 NFL stadium, and renovation funding for their major league sports arena.

The last of which, certainly the least costly, is still five time (+) more than this new facility which seems to tie in reasonably well with other public investment in light rail, Union Depot, and the overall vision for downtown St. Paul. Now that's not to say that if you believe the other projects were poor investments, that this is a good one simply because it's less costly and we owe it to St. Paul.

But I feel these numbers are worthy for context of a city that idealistically is supposed to be an equal "twin" (albeit a twin with a more laid back personality). I embrace our Twin Cities nickname. There's a reason we have that moniker and San Fran-Oakland , Seattle-Tacoma, Dallas-Fort Worth don't. Putting billions of dollars in to downtown Minneapolis stadium infrastructure then denying St. Paul their $30 million minor league ballpark just seems wrong.

With that said, I do believe that Xcel was a great public investment. This ballpark obviously isn't a one-for-one comparison. It will provide a sliver of the Xcel benefits, at a sliver of the price. I was also in favor of Target Field, TC renovations, and the Vikings stadium. All of these projects come with a tangible cost, tangible benefits, intangible costs, and intangible benefits. I definitely believe that the Vikings stadium is most questionable in terms of this cost-benefit equation. With that said, I expect it to pass the test.

[1stpontiac]

I haven't been to a Saints game yet, but minor league baseball can be great fun and the length of baseball season (and the weather during it) make me like baseball stadium project much more than other projects as a public investment, since you can repeatedly be bringing people down to an area that they will want to hang out around and go get some food, drinks, etc. I'm not an NHL guy at all, how to the hockey and Saint's seasons line up? I would assume that one or the other is playing almost all year? (barring the lockout, of course)

WSPH's point about tying into the lightrail is a good one, too.

I do understand stadium fatigue, though, and I think there better not be too many more requests in the queue.