Would you be willing cough up $350 million for a franchise that has been left for dead by MLB? And if you could get past that, would you then pay an additional $150 million to pay for half the park? When it's all said and done this thing is going to cost somebody upwards of half a BILLION dollars! Would you want to sink that kind of money into a place where the city council has a long history of screwing over team owners? I wouldn't. No way. If I were an investor there would need to be SIGNIFICANT public funding before I went anywhere NEAR this deal.
Rich people don't get to be rich because they make stupid financial deals.
Amen. I would use this event to pull the team to northern VA.
Apparently DC still welches on its deals.
I wasn't saying one person should do it, but rather a group of people investing less money. D.C. has seen what an arena can do (think of the new arena near China Town) for business and tax revenue, so in the end, the city council will not want to screw over the owners.
That's a good point from the investor side.
I always thought stadiums were municipal endeavors designed to increase the general desirability of the city and to increase tax revenues over the long term.
But it seems Cropp is a dunderhead and just doesn't get it.
Last month she almost nixed Mayor Williams' plan to have the new stadium over on South Capitol Street, which is from every perspective an ideal spot. Close to major roads, slightly rundown and in need of renovation, not too far from downtown DC, etc. (did they ever decide what to do, or is that still undecided).
Cropp's absurd alternative was to go next to the existing RFK way out on East Capitol Street, a place where few people want to go and with no real possibility of urban renewal. The traffic out there from Virginia fans would be miniscule, and enhanced tax revenues would be negligible.
Cropp can't think beyond the nose on her face, or more likely the reach of her extended palm.