Itâ€s official: Savannah baseball team moving to Columbia

Columbia team owner Jason Freier, whose Atlanta-based Hardball Capital operates minor league teams in three cities, announced Thursday that his group is moving the Savannah franchise to become the centerpiece of the 165-acre Bull Street development called Columbia Common. […]

The teamâ€s contract to stay in Savannahâ€s aging Grayson Stadium expires Sept. 30, and city officials there have rejected Freierâ€s request to build a new ballpark. Columbia has committed $30 million toward building the ballpark here, with Hardball Capital kicking in the other $7 million.

Hardball Capital also runs teams in Chattanooga, which plays in the Double-A Southern League, and Fort Wayne, Ind., which plays in the Single-A Midwest League.

Click here for today’s statement from the Sand Gnats about leaving Savannah and Grayson.

The study commissioned by the city of Savannah to determine the feasibility of a new stadium at Savannah River Landing turned out to be laughable; in addition to issues I discussed with the study, the financial analysis was also deeply flawed and assumed that all revenues generated by the stadium would be new revenues. The city of Savannah subsequently decided to explore the possibility of a new stadium on the site just west of downtown near the proposed new arena.

The feasibility study dismissed the possibility of renovating Grayson Stadium, but, in a world where old stadiums like Wrigley and Fenway are doing just fine, that seems like a premature conclusion.

So, here’s what I’d like to see happen:

Let’s get serious about renovating historic Grayson Stadium. Maybe that means rebuilding much of the structure within the existing facade. It might mean adding some “luxury” boxes along the third base line. It would certainly mean upgraded clubhouse facilities. And, while we’re at it, why not consider the possibility of the type of event spaces that the Sand Gnats’ owner desires?

This would be an expensive project, but if another minor league baseball team owner knows that we’re serious about preserving, using, and seriously updating Grayson, maybe we’ll get some interest.

By the way, the idea from the flawed study of using Grayson as is for high school and college games and maybe for other events is extremely problematic. Is the city prepared to pick up all maintenance for the field? Can a mix of school teams maintain and run the score board, lights, concessions, etc.?

So let’s pour our hearts — and some of our money — into Grayson.

By the way, I should also add that the new ballpark in Columbia is still just a pile of dirt at the moment, and there doesn’t seem any guarantee that the city’s heavy investment in the Bull Street development will be pay off. I have to assume, however, that the Sand Gnats wouldn’t have made today’s announcement without complete certainty that the field will be ready for next season.

And since then I’ve been reading up on the big Bull Street development in Columbia, S.C., an ambitious plan to reimagine the 165 acre campus of the old state mental hospital in the heart of the city.

From today’s article in The State, Exclusive: Owner guarantees team if city builds Bull Street stadium:

Jason Freier, owner of minor league baseball teams in Fort Wayne, Ind., and Savannah, on Wednesday guaranteed he would bring a team to Columbia if the city builds a new ballpark as part of the redevelopment of the old State Hospital campus on Bull Street. […]

In an exclusive interview with The State on Wednesday, Freier said he would locate a team in Columbia even if he had to buy another franchise. He said he couldnâ€t discuss moving his Class-A Savannah Sand Gnats team here because that would be a violation of minor league baseball rules.

“If we do a deal with Columbia, weâ€ll bring an affiliated minor league baseball team here,” Freier said. “I have a lease in place with the city of Savannah that runs through end of the 2014 season. We have no legal commitments with the city of Savannah beyond the 2014 season. We would love to work with the city of Savannah. Itâ€s what weâ€ve told them and thatâ€s the truth. But if we made a commitment to the city of Columbia, that commitment would be our first commitment. We wouldnâ€t make any commitments to Savannah after that.”

The proposed stadium in Columbia was projected to cost $42 million, but Freier says that it could be constructed for $35 million.

For more on the Bull Street development, a huge project, check out this piece from The State in November: Selling the Bull Street development – the new Columbia Common. From that piece:

Although Bull Street may be headed for a common name, it is a very uncommon development. The sale of the 165-acre former insane asylum property is considered the largest land deal in modern Columbia history.

The development would add thousands of new homes, stores and offices – as well as a proposed new minor league baseball stadium.

Apparently student housing is planned for the old Babcock Building, a beautiful but eerie structure.

I would say from a cursory reading of what’s actually going on in Columbia that there is a whole lot more civic enthusiasm for a new stadium there than in Savannah.

Columbia’s Bull Street development, while obviously speculative, apparently is already slated to have lots of parking. The sheer size and the blank slate of the property would avoid design and land use conflicts inherent in siting a stadium at Savannah River Landing, as Freier and Hardball Capital have proposed.

I guess the question now for Savannah leaders will be whether these latest developments call for a quicker feasibility study here. Given the cost of the proposed new stadium and the lack of enthusiasm for it around town, I wouldn’t be surprised if Savannah officials just backed off completely and let the Sand Gnats go.

For just this text, check out Prepared To Leave The City, Savannah Sand Gnats Ask For New Baseball Stadium. From that piece:

The team’s complaints include the size of the concession area and the lack of options for technical upgrades.

The team’s owners, Hardball Capital, are reportedly talking with city officials in Columbia, South Carolina.

The subtle threat is that if Savannah doesn’t build a new stadium, they’ll leave.

Local businessman Reed Dulany says that would be a tragedy.

“This is really more, far more than a stadium and far more than baseball,” Dulany says.

The online article also ends with some interesting tidbits about the history of baseball in Savannah.

There are a number of major questions that remain about the new stadium that the Sand Gnats want, including parking and the impact on the street grid already planned as an extension of the Oglethorpe Plan. Click here for another recent post on this subject.

From Eric Curl’s piece in the Savannah Morning News, Savannah City Council open to new stadium:

Savannah City Council members said Thursday they would like to further consider a proposal by the Sand Gnats†minor league baseball team owner for a new multi-use stadium.

Mayor Edna Jackson and city aldermen agreed that a feasibility study would need to be conducted before the city could support the construction of a stadium at the stalled Savannah River Landing site. […]

[Hardball Capital CEO Jason] Freier said the project would cost the city between $1.6 million and $1.9 million a year for thirty years. A majority of the cost of construction, maintenance and operations would be covered by private investment during that time period, he said.

I was against any serious talk of a stadium going back more than a year ago when it seemed that backers of the project were hoping to divert $20 million currently in the bank for a new arena. But now that the arena money is secure and voters have approved the arena project a second time in the recent SPLOST vote, why not give some thought to a stadium?

But, wow, so many issues:

• There’s a great deal of affection for Grayson Stadium. What happens to Grayson if the Sand Gnats move? (Without a new stadium, it seems likely the Gnats will move anyway.)
• The quoted cost at Thursday’s workshop is considerably higher than earlier estimates of about $20 million.
• What would this mean for Savannah River Landing? Would we have to abandon the Oglethorpe Plan extension — a plan that has already required significant infrastructure and that has attracted worldwide attention? (See my 2012 post Savannah River Landing: will Oglethorpe plan be part of its future?)
• Given the city’s commitment to a new arena, would a stadium divert energy and compete for business with that project?
• Hardball Capital frequently cites all the public events at the stadium in Fort Wayne that was built largely with public money. Why then aren’t there more things besides a farmers’ market on the stadium’s event calendar?
• If the city builds a new stadium at Savannah River Landing, presumably that would remain on public land in perpetuity, which means more maintenance down the road and no additional property taxes.
• Would we really see development follow a new stadium? Or will SRL eventually develop in a logical way, with a new hotel next to the Marriott, a couple of other big buildings next to that, etc.?
• There’s no mention in Eric’s article of the cost of simply acquiring the land at SRL?

I actually think that if the arena money is spent prudently, we could  cover a large portion of the bill for a new stadium via the 2014-2020 SPLOST. So I’m not opposed to further study of the feasibility of the idea.

But there are a lot of questions and issues that would have to be addressed.

And now city officials are considering using that money for a new riverfront stadium for Sand Gnats games and for other events.

A stadium in Fort Wayne, Ind., has been promoted as a model, but the weather, culture and demographics are far different there than here. Iâ€ll say more about those issues in an upcoming column.

Iâ€ll just say now that, in principle, I like the idea of an open-air riverfront stadium.

But we voted in 2006 to fund an arena, not a stadium.

Continuing to divert funds from voter-mandated projects is terrible politics. Having such discussions just a few weeks in advance of the T-SPLOST vote is even worse politics.

Lesley Conn has a piece today that looks at some of the negotiations, Stadium visit over, Savannah evaluates if arena is greater need. From that piece:

Council has to honor a commitment to voters, who in 2006 approved a special purpose local option sales tax promoted with the promise that citizens would get a new arena.

“The city engaged the voters and promised an arena, and I think we should stay on that course and give the voters an arena first,” said Alderman Tony Thomas.

Alderwoman Mary Ellen Sprague concurs, but added a thought other aldermen are considering: Finding a way to build both. If Hardball Capital, owners of the Sand Gnats and the Fort Wayne team, really want a new Savannah stadium, Sprague said, it is likely to get done sooner if itâ€s paired with an arena.

She believes there can be efficiencies because of shared parking, concessions, security stations and staging requirements.

I’m going to be writing in my City Talk column much more extensively about the stadium plans, probably in August or September. But let me just say a couple of things here:

• Creating a land use and funding plan for the arena should take precedence over the stadium, but it’s not a bad idea to think about creating both plans simultaneously.
• Putting an arena and a stadium next to each other is a terrible idea for Savannah. That’s simply an overwhelmingly large single complex for a city like ours, and both facilities will be sitting empty many days. Or alternately, there will be events planned for both facilities on some days, overwhelming surface streets and parking.
• Putting a covered arena on valuable, scenic riverfront property is an even worse idea. There’s a good argument for an open-air stadium, but I should note that the portion of Savannah River Landing now being considered is not right on the Savannah River, but back near the intersection of the Truman Parkway and President Street. If the public is going to have money in the game, that stadium needs to open on to the riverwalk.

First, let’s recall the excellent New York Times piece from 2007 about the Savannah River Landing site (that big tract of land east of the Marriott along the riverfront): Savannah Adds to the Master Plan of 1733 Many of us already had doubts about the project when that piece was published in spring 2007, but I and some other doubters were too quiet in raising them (not that it would have made much difference one way or the other).

From that NYT piece, which was published about 7 months before the country entered the deepest recession since the Great Depression:

As one of the oldest planned cities in the country, Savannah is known for compact, walkable streets and beautifully landscaped historic squares. Designed by the cityâ€s founder, James Oglethorpe, in 1733, it has remained largely intact even as electricity and cars were introduced, though buildings have changed uses over time.

It is precisely this longevity that the Ambling Companies hopes to build on with the largest expansion of the historic downtown since Oglethorpe first envisioned it. Savannah River Landing, an $800 million mixed-use development currently under way, will extend the city east along the Savannah River on land that Oglethorpe platted but never made use of.

More than four years ago, the cityâ€s economic development agency hired Christian Sottile, a Savannah-based urban planner, to update the Oglethorpe plan, which is now guiding the development of Amblingâ€s 54-acre site. Mr. Sottile will be continuing a pattern of development that last had a major addition in 1856.

“Whatâ€s so unique about Savannah River Landing, we were able to reach back 150 years and continue a history of urbanism native to this place,” said Mr. Sottile, who teaches urban planning and design at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Savannah River Landing would have created six new squares, and — as noted in the piece — would have been connected to downtown through likely changes to the current street pattern at the northeast end of downtown. That over time probably would have meant the elimination of the diagonal General McIntosh Boulevard and the recreation of gridded north-south and east-west blocks. (I guarantee if would have worked on many levels better than what we have now.)

Savannah River Landing as an extension of the Oglethorpe plan and street grid

PSP Investments has hired a local consultant to work with those partners and others to plan the development’s future.

City of Savannah officials said they look forward to those talks. The city government never feared the project would collapse, said Assistant City Manager Chris Morrill.

“We always knew this was a unique development on the East Coast,” Morrill said. “We’re in this for the long term.”

The city’s concern going forward is in the project remaining true to its master plan. Designed to be an extension of Savannah’s historic district, the Savannah River Landing was to incorporate parks, squares and tree-lined streets. Of the site’s 54 acres, 25 were to be public space.

The city wants the “new players” to keep “the public realm connected,” Morrill said.

“And we don’t see that changing,” he said.

I never shared Morrill’s optimism from two years ago that the plan would be or even could be preserved. (Morrill is of course now city manager in Roanoke.)

From this week’s New stadium could spur development on Savannah River Landing, property manager says:

The Savannah River Landing project, which broke ground in 2008, stalled when the economy did. The original concept, developed by Ambling Companies, called for an $800 million investment that would bring a mix of two hotels, 600 condominiums, 110 town homes, 17 million-dollar waterfront homes and about 50 shops and retail stores.

That plan, and the design meant to mimic the Oglethorpe grid pattern of historic downtown, may be revised in the current economy.

“The vision looked beautiful on paper, but Iâ€ve never seen any feasibility study that supported the amount of retail and residential on it,” Burgstiner said.

Given that, the look of the project could change, too.

“Probably a lot of the plan that is there will stay, but a lot of it will change,” he said.

These are interesting discussions.

I’m particularly interested to know from that piece quoted directly above that the Savannah River Landing owners seem willing to be flexible about land use and even land acquisition. Since an open air stadium would need only about 20% of the site, there’s reason to think a deal could be worked out despite the fact that the owners likely have tens of millions of dollars tied up in the site.

And it’s always been tantalizing to consider various uses that would be suitable for a site in such close proximity to downtown — a movie theater, for example.

But there will definitely be something lost if all or even part of the existing plan to extend the Oglethorpe grid is altered.

At the end of the day, as I keep noting, Savannah River Landing is privately owned, but we can certainly help guide its use and future development — something will happen there sometime — through close attention and informed discussion. And perhaps through direct investment.

For those who have forgotten, Savannah River Landing was a massive, $800-million, mixed-use private development at the eastern end of River Street that attracted millions in city infrastructure spending before the whole plan collapsed after the recession hit.

Still, as recently as last June, city officials seemed convinced — or maybe they were just convincing themselves? — that we’d still eventually see a major development similar to the original plan, which attracted national attention because of the extension of the Oglethorpe grid. From the NYT in 2007: Savannah Adds to the Master Plan of 1733

Back to 2012: Savannah voters have already approved sales tax funding for a new arena, but the economic downturn and other issues left us about $100 million short for arena funding. At the same time, the city is getting pressure from the owners of the single A Savannah Sand Gnats that they need a new stadium better than the historic but limited Grayson Stadium in Daffin Park.

Today in the SMN, Lesley Conn does a great job updating us on the current issues in play and the continued push for a new stadium — usable for baseball, concerts, and other events — in the downtown area, preferably at the Savannah River Landing site: Savannah council considers new stadium with SPLOST funding

It’s a pretty straightforward idea: divert $22 million currently set aside for the arena, which was the cornerstone of the city’s campaign to pass the last Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, to a new open-air stadium, and then come back to voters next year for a new round of SPLOST that would include full arena funding. That’s assuming, of course, that voters approve another round of SPLOST, which adds 1% to all sales taxes in Chatham County. The Sand Gnats would also need to put millions into the project (the construction bill would likely be $50 million or more) and commit to a long-term lease.

From Lesley’s piece, which is well worth a full read:

Because the stadium also would serve as a multi-use facility, it could be paid for with money from the 2006 SPLOST allocation, which stated in the referendum that the 1-cent special purpose local option sales tax would help fund an arena as well as “cultural and recreational facilities.”

Once the stadium is under way, the city would ask voters to approve a new SPLOST, which could happen in 2013, and would specifically earmark the new tax monies for an arena.

That would give the city time to raise money, study a site and determine how an arena could complement a stadium and the Johnny Mercer Theater.

City officials and Jason Freier, chief executive officer of Hardball Capital, parent company of the Gnats, say the stadium is a separate discussion from the arena talks. A stadium would serve separate needs from a traditional, indoor, enclosed arena.

Fort Wayne's Parkview Field being used for a wedding

But there’s one key point that doesn’t make its way into the Savannah Morning News article today:

What do the current owners of Savannah River Landing have to say about this?

There’s an awful lot of chatter online about the site and there seems to be a presumption that “we” — meaning Savannah as a whole — has final say in what happens there. But the 54-acre site is owned by an investment group controlled by a Canadian pension fund. They have many tens of millions of dollars already wrapped up in the Savannah River Landing site, and it seems pointless to identify that as a dream site for a stadium without a clear grasp of what it would take to get the land.

As for the idea itself, I’d say it’s an intriguing one — and certainly better than the idea of an indoor facility on that prime land.

And, yes, Savannah could really use a prime outdoor space like this. In proximity to downtown, the Sand Gnats would also be a tourist draw to a degree that they are not now.

Will the public buy into this, considering the promises regarding the arena? I don’t know the answer to that one.