Affordable ballparks

Boston needs to consider a new site for the Sox' stadium

If by some legislative chicanery the Red Sox are able to get beyond the constitutional prohibitions against using the government's powers of eminent domain to take private land for the benefit of a private business, they will still have problems building their new ballpark. That's because they can't afford to build in the Fenway -- even if the city pays $90 million toward land-acquisition costs, as the team has requested, and another $50 million in site-preparation costs. And they can't afford the deal even if the state pays $135 million to build two parking garages and improve the infrastructure of the proposed site of the new park.

As the Phoenix reported last week ("The Sox Can't Afford the Fenway," News and Features), land-acquisition costs may be closer to $450 million than $90 million. The assessed value of the 26 parcels of land needed by the Red Sox to build a new park is $48.7 million. (It should be noted that the offices of the Boston Phoenix, at 126 Brookline Avenue, are located on one of these parcels.) Judging from the rule of thumb established by land takings for the South Boston convention center -- which are far from settled -- the Sox will have to pay a minimum of four times the assessed value of the land: $195 million. And yet land appraisers say the Fenway parcels should go for between seven and 10 times their assessed value because of their desirable location. That pushes land-acquisition costs to between $341 million and $487 million. There's simply no way that the Red Sox, a team owned by a charitable trust, can absorb such costs. The Sox will have a hard enough time just coming up with their share of the financing, for which they're already counting on money to be earned by selling naming rights to the new park.

Knowing this ahead of time, it would be financial folly to let this deal go forward. City and state leaders need look no further than the complications arising from the land takings for the convention center to see where the Sox' ill-thought-out plans for a new baseball stadium will be several years from now. Although ground was broken last week for the convention center, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission is still operating on the site. Neal Tully, an attorney representing six of the property owners who have land needed for the $700 million convention center, says that the city has not offered reasonable prices for the parcels; one of his clients, developer Frank McCourt, has already filed suit, claiming that the Boston Redevelopment Authority made him an unfair offer. Tully says he expects several more of his clients to file suit for the same reason.

The first batch of concrete hasn't even been mixed for that development, and yet land-acquisition costs threaten to put the project millions of dollars over budget. Take a guess as to who's going to pick up the additional costs: taxpayers. In the coming years, city and state leaders are sure to find themselves digging deeper into the public's wallet to bail out the convention-center project. It would be irresponsible to green-light another project that's sure to face similar budgeting problems. After the Big Dig and the convention center, the city and state can't afford another boondoggle.

At this juncture, our elected leaders need to step back and rethink the Red Sox deal. Is the Fenway neighborhood the best site for a new ballpark? Not by a long shot. Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has praised the Sox in recent weeks for the team's willingness to commit so much of its own money to the building of a new stadium. But his comments need to be placed in context. Yes, the Sox have pledged more money toward the cost of building a new park than any other ball club -- yet the proposal the Sox have put forward is the most expensive of any major-league park to date. The Sox say they can build a new park for $627 million, but the costs of this project -- both known and unknown, including debt service -- are fast approaching the billion-dollar mark. And that's because the team wants to build on prime real estate located in a neighborhood just blocks from downtown Boston.

The $352 million the Sox are going to put toward their new park would have covered the entire costs of three new ballparks that opened this year: the San Francisco Giants' Pacific Bell Park ($319 million), the Detroit Tigers' Comerica Park ($300 million), and the Houston Astros' Enron Field ($248 million). It's not unreasonable to think the Sox' $352 million would pay the bulk of the financing needed for a new park somewhere else -- say, South Bay, site of the city's old incinerator. City and state leaders would be smart to start looking for another location for the Sox -- preferably one that's not undergoing a development boom or located smack in the middle of a bustling urban residential and retail district.

It's not too late to consider alternate plans. We can't afford not to.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.