Would You Support a New Baseball Stadium

[Veritas]

... If it meant an affiliated minor league team and a temporary sales tax to build it?

http://www.kansas.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/bob-lutz/article34187172.html

[Aargh]

... If it meant an affiliated minor league team and a temporary sales tax to build it?

http://www.kansas.com/sports/spt-col...e34187172.html

I'm afraid the temporary sales tax would last longer than the affiliated minor league team.

[Awesome Sauce Malone]

The problem with asking this question is you will undoubtedly get quite a few people that say "Yes ill support" but there is generally very little follow through.

I would love to have affiliated ball. But to be perfectly honest my support would only go that far. With kids schedules and what not the last they want to do after spending weeks and weekends on a ball field is go to another ball field.

To answer the question posed - I think that yes LD needs to get a facelift (super happy that they updated the turf btw) but I would have to see what the plan is from the team (be it the wingnuts or the owners of an affiliated team) on what they plan on pitching in first before I say yay or nay on a tax increase.

Its probably cheaper to build new. Let them rent the Eck for a year while they do it.

[ShockerFever]

Agreed. Build it new. Build it right. Build it for the future.

Or don't do it at all.

[RoyalShock]

If the primary occupant was to be affiliated with the Royals, I would go to a couple of games a year. If not, I'm not sure if I would go. I have yet to attend a Wingnuts game.

Other than that, being an outsider I have no skin in the game.

[vancedave56]

I would rather have a D-League basketball team at Hartman Arena.

[DwShock]

As a Wichita Outsider it would be nice to have a new stadium in Wichita with a team that's affiliated with a pro club but I wouldn't be paying for it . I don't attend a lot of triple A games in Omaha but the city does support the team. I think Wichita is big enough to support a Minor league team.

[MoValley John]

As a Wichita Outsider it would be nice to have a new stadium in Wichita with a team that's affiliated with a pro club but I wouldn't be paying for it . I don't attend a lot of triple A games in Omaha but the city does support the team. I think Wichita is big enough to support a Minor league team.

Can you quantify Omaha's support? I have no idea. I know, since they moved to the cornfield in Papillion, I have been once. It wasn't crowded, but that was my one and only experience. Maybe people support the team, maybe they don't, I just don't know. I know Des Moines supports their team quite well.

[KC Shox]

Absolutely. Wichita is getting further behind the Joneses. As Fever said, if you're going to do it, do it right the first time. We ran out of money for Intrust so they skimped on some items that was originally planned. Intrust should have been better.

Omaha has a new park, KCK has that relatively new facility for the T-Bones which is nice, OKC built a nice downtown park which is less than 20 years old, Tulsa built a new downtown park in 2010, and Little Rock built a new park in 2007.

I don't expect the cheapskate citizens of Wichita to do much, they ***** and complain about water rates going up to repair the much needed sewer pipes and other infrastructure needs.

[SHOCKvalue]

Absolutely. Wichita is getting further behind the Joneses. As Fever said, if you're going to do it, do it right the first time. We ran out of money for Intrust so they skimped on some items that was originally planned. Intrust should have been better.

Omaha has a new park, KCK has that relatively new facility for the T-Bones which is nice, OKC built a nice downtown park which is less than 20 years old, Tulsa built a new downtown park in 2010, and Little Rock built a new park in 2007.

I don't expect the cheapskate citizens of Wichita to do much, they ***** and complain about water rates going up to repair the much needed sewer pipes and other infrastructure needs.

Intrust's one defense is that it was built at the height of a global construction boom. Due to material costs, the dollar did not go far at that time. Build it five years earlier, or five years later, and Wichita would have likely gotten a more legitimate downtown arena, as opposed to the low roof midget we ended up with that somehow crams 15K in like sardines. Maybe those economic forces impacted the (silly and ugly - IMO) non-traditional design and layout as well, I can't speak to that.

What none of this could have changed though is the ineptitude of which development is driven by the powers that be at the City and County. If only Carlos Mayans wouldn't have literally shooed away Bass Pro Shops at the WaterWalk (you want contacts and references on that, I'm happy to oblige), and then if the County would have also located the new arena adjacent to WW, we would likely have a drastically different downtown than we do now. I don't know if there is another city as large (or larger) as Wichita that is as incompetent on the public side of public-private commercial development as ol' Doo-Dah is. They piss money and potential to the wind, and are oblivious to it.

Anyways, the only city you mentioned who's built a new ballpark that it analogous to Wichita is Little Rock, and maybe if you stretch it a little then Omaha. The metro areas of KC, OKC, and Tulsa are all significantly larger than Wichita.

[ShockdaWorld]

I would rather have a D-League basketball team at Hartman Arena.

Agreed. Would love to have a D-League team in ICT.

[DwShock]

Can you quantify Omaha's support? I have no idea. I know, since they moved to the cornfield in Papillion, I have been once. It wasn't crowded, but that was my one and only experience. Maybe people support the team, maybe they don't, I just don't know. I know Des Moines supports their team quite well.

Last season they averaged 5500+ a game. Weekend games and special promotion games are a lot better attended. Stadium holds 9000.