No one knows where the Red Sox are going to play. Harrington’s dream of building next to Fenway Park, financed in part with more than $300 million in city and state money, appears to be as dead as Tom and Jean Yawkey. "An absolutely asinine plan ... unworkable," says Andrew Zimbalist. (The plan would also wipe out the Phoenix’s offices. For our past coverage, see www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/fenway.html.)
Surprisingly, though, the aging Fenway Park may not be as close to the wrecker’s ball as everyone thinks. The Henry-Werner group says it will refurbish and expand Fenway. Some smart people say it can’t be done, but who knows? Tom Goldstein, publisher of the baseball fanzine Elysian Fields Quarterly and a proponent of saving Fenway, thinks genuine neighborhood ballparks such as Fenway and Chicago’s Wrigley Field remain an undervalued resource — much better for urban communities than even the much-praised new traditionalist ballparks such as Cleveland’s Jacobs Field and Pittsburgh’s PNC Park. "After Camden Yards [in Baltimore], there’s not much new," he says. "They’re all the same."
Charles Dolan, who has not signaled what his stadium preference would be, reportedly made a tantalizing comment, recounted in the Globe, when told that Fenway Park was too small. "If they can’t watch the game here, they can watch it on TV," he was quoted as saying. Translation: a ballpark today is nothing but a television studio — a backdrop for a TV show. What better backdrop than John Updike’s "lyric little bandbox"?
O’Donnell and Karp are the two most likely buyers to seek to grab hold of taxpayers’ wallets. Karp already has a proven track record of profiting from state and city action. Last year, the Boston Herald reported that Karp had received a $5.25 million profit from the quiet sale of a Roxbury property to the Boston Water and Sewer Commission. Karp, an ally of Boston mayor Tom Menino, had paid $75,001 in January, 1997 to hold the option to buy the Harrison Avenue property. In March, 1998 he flipped it for $11 million, selling to the city-controlled agency. Both O’Donnell and Karp are also partners in a plan to develop real estate on the site of Anthony’s Pier 4 on the waterfront. Karp, in fact, owns land near the site, and some now suggest that this could be a new ballpark site. They have also reportedly talked about building a new Red Sox ballpark on the site of Suffolk Downs. An alternate possibility: teaming up with Frank McCourt, another bidder for the Red Sox, whose South Boston waterfront property is considered by many to be an ideal location for a new stadium.
What all this adds up to is that for all the local rooting for O’Donnell and Karp, a successful bid from them means money. Even if the Harrington "New Fenway" plan is dead, the pair might seek millions in public money to finance a waterfront or East Boston plan. And despite the currently dismal situation on Beacon Hill, state legislators may be prepared to give it to them. State House insiders suspect that the powerful friends of O’Donnell and Karp, such as Menino, would push hard to find some way to help fund the duo.
And, no, it’s not that O’Donnell and Karp are cash-poor, as some media circles have portrayed them. Clearly these are wealthy, successful people, and they could bring in partners who are equally — or more — wealthy to win the bid, or even after the sale. But their route to greater riches is a bit more complicated than that of the other groups, for whom the Red Sox are more than anything a media deal. Sure, O’Donnell and Karp would benefit as much as anyone from acquiring NESN. What they’re really about, though, is real estate. If they build a new stadium anywhere other than the Fenway, then they have two major development opportunities — and Karp, an experienced and savvy mall developer, knows his real estate. First, Fenway Park itself can be redeveloped, emerging as a link between the increasingly vibrant Kenmore Square at one end of Brookline Avenue and the Landmark Center at the other. Second, the new ballpark itself would almost certainly be not just a ballpark, but a retail mecca, a food court, a media center, what-have-you.
O’Donnell is a former Harvard baseball star whose good-guy reputation is deserved. But before elected officials fall all over themselves to shove money at him and Karp, they should stop to consider what an incredibly lucrative deal this is going to be.
Indeed, the big question looming over all this is whether elected officials would go along with a huge giveaway of taxpayer money to billionaire owners, whether it’s O’Donnell-Karp or Dolan or whoever, at a time when they’re slashing human services to the bone. "I just don’t think the people are willing to do that," says City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen, a staunch opponent of Harrington’s "New Fenway" plan. Adds Steve Collins, executive director of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition: "This would be a totally wrong time and would send a totally wrong message if we were to help out private corporate interests at a time when we’re slashing services for our most vulnerable residents." Herb Gleason, a lawyer for the Fenway neighborhood, puts it this way: "It would be the height of folly to provide a subsidy like that to Dolan."
Still, sources say that there is reason to think the powerful House Speaker, Tom Finneran, would be willing to make the same financial commitment to the next owner as he did to Harrington for a stadium plan that he likes. Inconceivable as it may be, the state may yet write a check to the Red Sox even though it has refused to uphold its court-ordered commitment to care for mentally retarded adults.
