Travis Waldron of ThinkProgress thoughtfully ran down five elections yesterday with stadium implications, from a vote on rehabbing the Astrodome to decisions on new mayors for cities facing sports venue battles. And the results are:
- Defeated: Stuart Sternberg’s nemesis Bill Foster is out of a job, as the St. Petersburg mayor was defeated 56-44% by Rick Kriseman, a former city councilmember and state representative. Foster was famously opposed to even discussing letting Sternberg’s Tampa Bay Rays out of their lease on Tropicana Field (though he’d backed down on that a bit of late); Kriseman has promised to “initiate conversations about the future of the team in St. Pete and in this area,” which could mean, um, anything? And he’s also said he’d want to the Rays to pay something for being let out of their lease, though not how much, which is going to be the key element as far as Sternberg is concerned. Suffice to say that the Rays battleground has shifted, anyway.
- Rejected: A $217 million proposal to renovate the now-vacant Astrodome as a convention and event center was narrowly defeated, 53-47%. The Eighth Wonder of the World and sort-of birthplace of fake grass will now likely be demolished, which is kind of sad as it’s certainly a historic structure; on the other hand, $217 million to remake it as the world’s most ill-advisedly retrofitted convention center would have given new meaning to throwing good money after bad.
- Elected: Bill Peduto as mayor of Pittsburgh, in a landslide. Peduto had previously come out against the Steelers owners’ demand for $20 million in public money to add more seats, so presumably this makes that less likely to happen now.
- Elected: Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York City, in an even bigger landslide. De Blasio will need to decide on plans for a new stadium for New York City F.C., as yet still in the formative stages; he’s previously said he’s against tax giveaways, but open to listening on stadium ideas, blah blah blah. It’ll certainly be a change from Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who never met a development project he didn’t like, but de Blasio hasn’t made ending tax subsidies a core part of his campaign or anything.
- Elected: Betsy Hodges as mayor of Minneapolis, where the Vikings stadium deal still isn’t 100% set in stone, what with the cost overruns and the seat license controversy and all that. Hodges has pledged not to give the Vikings any more money, but given that the 0.5% city sales tax surcharge for the stadium has already been approved and the state now controls the project, it’s frankly doubtful whether her position will end up mattering much.
The big one to watch immediately is clearly the St. Pete mayoral situation, given that Sternberg is undoubtedly going to be one of the first to call on Kriseman wishing to start those promised “conversations.” There are still a heck of a lot of obstacles to the Rays getting a new building — how on earth to pay for it, mostly — but Foster, at least, is no longer one of them.
Just saw that Seattle voted Mike McGinn out of office, as well. Should be interesting to see how its new mayor will handle the arena situation. (Coincidentally, I’m heading up there this weekend, so that topic might come up at some point when I meet up with my old friends there)
The Astrodome –
The printed ad campaign had “Save The Dome” in large print and then in much smaller print was the referendum number. The ad didn’t do a good job of saying, “VOTE”. There was a flashy video with a lot of pan motion but not a good job of explaining why spending the money was a good thing. Many people had the “throwing good money after bad” mentality. The poorly handled (4+ hour lines to get nothing but a coupon) “Astrodome yard sale” last weekend probably didn’t help, but I can’t imagine that had a major influence on the vote.
So, most likely the Astrodome will be torn down. The Astrodome is too close to Reliant Stadium to “push the button”, so it will come down by wrecking ball and bulldozer instead.
The structure is in bad shape with rust throughout. The inside has been declared to be a hazard and no one is allowed in except work crews. It looks like a wart next to the much-taller Reliant Stadium with its retractable roof. So, it is time to do something about the abandoned Astrodome and it looks like that decision has now been made.
It was a stadium that changed sports in more ways than any other modern-era stadium. Many of those changes were for the worst not the better but its influence cannot be denied.
I have to admit some mixed-emotions. It was a horrible place to see baseball played compared to an outdoor game on natural turf. But, without it, there would have been no baseball in Houston. And, without it, there would have been no kangaroo hops, turf monsters, pop-ups that hit speakers, dugouts that aren’t dugouts, etc.
SUSSED: Toronto mayor Rob Ford, principal backer of a new Argonauts stadium.
And Stockton’s bid to raise it’s sales tax rate by 3/4%, to 9%, is apparently on the way to a win.
So noted because of the major contribution their public projects have made to their fiscal issues.
The new Seattle mayor Murray has been saying he won’t block the arena, but he did recently sit down and get endorsed by the anti-arena primary challenger.
But, if you are reading tea-leaves, Murray didn’t show up to any pre-election events wearing Sonics warm-ups like McGinn did. http://cdn0.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/21574087/mcginn_in_sonics_gear.0_standard_352.0.jpg
Of the four projects mentioned in this discussion (1: Heinz Field Expansion. 2: Seattle Arena. 3: New Rays stadium. 4: New Soccer Stadium), being completed with five years, my betting is on the Soccer Stadium.