Buttermilk & Molasses

Girls, Girls, There's Enough Room for All of Your Stadiums

The best thing about the latest proposal to bring baseball to Richmond, as NBC12's Rachel DePompa points out this evening in her blog, is that it actually isn't even a frakkin' proposal!

It's a guy with a plot of land he wants to sell.

Come to Northside, folks, there are a few dozen small plots available for nice pick-up game fields -- all you have to do is tear down the homes sitting on them.

DePompa makes a more pertinent point deeper in her post, though she never really comes out and blatantly says it. "It" being the very obvious question: Who is running this shell game to begin with?

The answer, apparently, depends on where you want to build your ball field, as DePompa notes:

If you want to revamp the Diamond, well don’t call the city cause the RMA owns it. If you want to put it in the Bottom, then you make the counties AND the RMA feel left out of the discussion.

All of this comes in a flurry of reports and press conferences over the past month that were alternately inane and visionary -- baseball in Shockoe Bottom; the idea of baseball in the Bottom is not about baseball, but about economic development; let's combine the baseball initiative with high-speed rail and a bus transfer station and a national slavery museum; let's do baseball in Chesterfield; let's keep it at The Diamond, but fundamentally rebuild the ball field and add bumper cars.

No wonder the whole thing imploded. Most things do when they lack cohesive leadership, and are built around ever-changing stories.

Such as the latest story from Michael Martz at the Times-Dispatch about a new sort of, quasi-possible location in Manchester for a new stadium:

The stadium site would be part of a 17.5-acre property between the Manchester and 14th Street bridges, with a clear view of the river and downtown skyline.

"How good would a ballpark look there?" asked John T. "Trib" Sutton III, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis of Virginia, a real estate brokerage that is handling the sale of the property for Reynolds...

...However, Richmond officials say they didn't consider the casual conversation a pitch for a new stadium site and that they don't have any formal proposal to consider.

"Unequivocally, we are not considering any proposal for a baseball stadium on that site," Tammy D. Hawley, the mayor's press secretary, said yesterday.

By the way, if you haven't made time to periodically read the comments in the Times-Dispatch (especially on news stories that deal with race, sports or politics), do yourself a favor. My favorite comment on the latest ball field proposal echoes DePompa's blog post. TD reader "Rayzor" writes:

New month, new baseball article. Sadly, it’s the same old non-committal load of crap we see with each story:

"Reynolds Packaging Group has MENTIONED to city officials INFORMALLY the POSSIBILITY OF a minor-league baseball…"

"Richmond officials say they didn’t consider the casual conversation a pitch for a new stadium site…THEY DIDN’T HAVE ANY FORMAL PROPOSAL…"

"Unequivocally, we are NOT CONSIDERING ANY PROPOSAL for a baseball stadium on that site"...

...With all the staff cuts at the RTD lately, whoever has landed the plum assignment of the weekly baseball story will have job security for years to come.

I’ll be on vacation next week, so I’ll miss the next installment of…"Baseball in Richmond: Will They or Won’t They? No. They Won’t."

Here's a Game Changer for the Diamond

Imagine my surprise this evening when I discovered -- courtesy of the folks at 10 South Boulevard -- that Richmond's vacant baseball field is about to be host to a passel of dog-rising monkeys. I know, you're already intrigued!

10 South Boulevard cites the always-reputable WRIC TV-8 with the news that Tennessee-based Fair Nation was bringing crash cars, a gigantic petting zoo and the sad spectacle of dogs being ridden by monkey jockeys to The Diamond this summer.

There are about a million more interesting things that can be done with that vacant space, including massive robot wars. Now that would be something worth its weight in Diamond Ducks.

New Chris OBrion Cartoon: Richmond as Ancient Rome

He's simply the funniest editorial cartoonist around, and maybe the only living, breathing one regularly tackling Richmond-centric issues. Check out Chris OBrion's other stuff at Richmond Cartoon.

Baseball in the Bottom: Three Ways Forward, Only One Way To Win

It seems to me that a bit of a substantial shift is happening in the ongoing (and going and going) debate about the future of baseball -- in Richmond, generally, and in Shockoe Bottom specifically.

Part of the shift happened over time as a series of public discussions organized by the developer of a proposed $360 million-plus mixed use reinvention of the Bottom were more divisive than decisive -- most in attendance at the sessions appeared more captivated by the details in Highwood's balance sheets and financial calculations than in the vision the developer and local baseball afficianado Brian Bostic were pitching.

When financial statements tank a compelling vision, it's probably a good time to find a relief pitcher.

With public opinion increasingly fractured, this week's press conference in which Mayor Dwight Jones discussed the results of a $100,000 financial study of the proposed development and accompanying ball park was not what Highwoods wanted. Jones changed the game with a very simple change-up -- figure out how the proposal should factor in a GRTC bus transfer station, a future high-speed rail connection, and the deep African-American historical roots of the area.

Not what Highwoods wanted. But maybe exactly what they needed.

 There are three ways Highwoods can proceed with their multi-million play. Two paths are sure-fire ways to lose everything.

They can call the game due to inclement weather -- the collision of two fronts, an economic low pressure system and increasingly high pressure of public dissatisfaction. Highwoods walks. The Bottom continues to increment its way forward. Hello, status quo.

They can keep on slogging through the game, relying on an inning-by-inning strategy developed long before the game got interesting. It's always fascinating to watch a team run the same play, again and again, even as the entire game has transformed around them. Fascinating in that sick, car crash sort of way. Recent articles in the Times-Dispatch about parking challenges and prospective teams waffling -- along with Style Weekly's consistently solid reporting on the numbers -- are an example of the water torture that will ultimately ensure the plan falls apart.

Shared Air's Mark Brady alludes to the third way, the way opened up this week by Jones:

This thing is on life supoport unless Highwoods and GRTC, the two organized projects many oppose, get their acts together and find a way to integrate their missions/goals and offer one hellacious destination that brings along, in a meaningful clearly explored way,  the other two pieces of unfocused heritage projects people like — historic green market, Lumpkins 1/2 acre — into the mix. When it comes to Shockoe and it’s potential, maybe some folks are suddenly realizing they hang together or they hang separately. Maybe.

The real opportunity -- the bold, visionary one that Richmond will most likely resist -- is to bring all the players into a new conversation. Using Highwoods' proposal as a starting point, organize an aggressive, hands-on charrette that includes the developers, the ball team investors, GRTC, Virginians for High-Speed Rail, representatives from Shockoe Bottom and adjoining neighborhoods, the Capital Trail folks, champions of the Slave Trail, the city's community development division, the Sierra Club, the James River Park system, property owners and more.

Transform the conversation from one about baseball into one about transforming the former heart of the city back into a healthy, vibrant organ -- one that is green, sustainable and energetic. One that connects the people of the region with transportation, history and soul. A place with a ball park, perhaps, but certainly a place that transcends America's pasttime by creating a space that represents the best of America's values -- built on community, connection, conversation and commerce.

Just Build It, Williams Opines

Like TD columnist Michael Paul Williams, I suspect about 90% of the region's population is pretty entrenched in their opinions about when, where and whether a new baseball park should be built in the Richmond region. (They fall roughly into the camps of Shockoe Bottom, Boulevard, Manchester, western Chesterfield and "who cares".)

Today, Williams makes a pretty blunt case for just shutting up and building the damn thing:

It's time to end this long, drawn-out debate over the best site for a new baseball stadium in Richmond.

The Shockoe Bottom location represents the only real momentum we have toward a ballpark. Highwoods Proper ties, which has proposed the Shockoe Center development, appears to be the big-league player in the batter's box.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones is correct in saying there is no consensus on the ballpark. But if we wait to build consensus, we'll never build a ballpark. People are entrenched in their points of view.

The ever-cautious Jones must lead here, moving various parties and regional partners beyond self-interest...

...Everyone but Richmond seems to know downtown is the place to go.

Having all but cornered the proposed ballpark's developers into making way for a GRTC transfer station, a high-speed rail connection and something more than a passing nod to Shockoe Bottom's historical roots as a major hub for the slave trade, Mayor Jones has all but ensured that there will be a minor construction boom in the bottom right around the corner.

From where I sit (in the "Who cares?" camp), making sure we get a state-of-the-art bus transfer station, a high-speed rail connection downtown and somehow manage not to bury our history again is worth the price of admission to a new ballfield in the Bottom. I'm not convinced that the market can bear the weight of a $300 million-plus mixed use baseball-centered development downtown, but if you add in those other three anchors I'm a bit less of a skeptic.

Is Baseball Sliding into the Bottom?

I've largely stayed away from the "Where to put the ball field?" discussion -- in part because I've been exceptionally busy, and in part because I have somehow managed to remain relatively uninformed about the issue. Also, baseball is dull.

But I have to admit being intrigued by today's release of the sort-of-long-awaited report commissioned by Richmond's mayor, and the accompanying media coverage.

The Times-Dispatch promises its online readers full coverage tomorrow, but Style Weekly and the local TV stations were all over the story today. Let's begin with coverage from WWBT-12's Rachel DePompa, who focuses on the study's finding that the project is much more financially appealing with the City of Richmond backing bonds for the construction of a new ball field and a $363 million development in Shockoe Bottom:

The mayor says he likes what he sees, but he's not ready to say yes to the 363 million dollar Shockoe Center proposal.

"Many stars have got to line up in order for the project to go forward," said Mayor Jones.

According to the study, the proposal to put office space, shops, hotels and a baseball park in the bottom will most likely need help from the city in the form of credit support. But if the city backs the bonds, the city's cost will drop from 80 to about 60 million dollars.

"We have a cap on what we can carry our debt up to and so it's going to be very critical that we make the right decision as what we want to increase debt. Cause once we do it. It's done," said Richmond City Council Vice President Ellen Robertson.

But it's Style Weekly's Scott Bass who calls foul after viewing the instant replay:

The most significant finding by the consultants -- which included Davenport & Co., Economics Research Associates and Chmura Economics and Analytics -- is that financing the ballpark without credit support from the city is “highly unlikely.”

That in turn, led the consultants to recommend the city set aside $56 million in capital spending, or about 10.7 percent of the city’s $520 million proposed capital spending budget from 2009 to 2016, to secure the bonds that would finance the ballpark.

If the city decided to offer its credit support, the consultants concluded, then the “proposal would be highly feasible.”

But that’s not exactly the plan that Highwoods Properties, the project’s chief developer, has been promoting over the last eight months. That plan promises they could sell bonds and build the ballpark without the city’s financial support – a rewards-only scenario that makes a ballpark in Shockoe so much more appealing than rebuilding on The Boulevard.

Paul Kreckman, a senior vice president at Highwoods, and co-developer Bryan Bostic, head of the proposed baseball team’s ownership group, have preached for months the virtues of their free ballpark, which they promised would catalyze economic development in the Bottom without costing the city its debt capacity.

In fact, when Style asked Kreckman in February why it wouldn’t be better to rebuild the ballpark on the Boulevard, he explained that it would cost taxpayers too much. “I would much rather see the city spend its debt capacity on schools,” Kreckman said. “If the revenue stream from Shockoe Center isn’t sufficient from this project to pay the debt service and to repay the bonds, [bondholders’] security is the ballpark, not the taxpayer. ... I would much rather the city be in a position to preserve every bit of its debt capacity."

This raises all sorts of questions -- not only about whether the Highwoods proposal is a good deal for the city, but also where Mayor Jones and City Council ultimately stand on the issue.

Jones' own comments at today's press conference (courtesy of Style Weekly) provide some indication that he's prepared to play hard ball with Highwoods to get the best deal possible for the city. Jones calls Highwoods' proposal "a potentially transformative project" and goes on to bundle any forward movement on a ball park in Shockoe Bottom with three critical considerations:

• The incorporation of GRTC's proposed transfer center as part of a "transit-oriented, mixed-use town center" in the Bottom;
• Alignment with future opportunities for high-speed rail capacity linking Richmond with Washington and other East Coast metro areas; and
• "Clear plans" to preserve the history and African-American cultural heritage of the Bottom.

Still, as Council's Ellen Robertson and Style's Scott Bass both infer, the real issue is where the city should invest its financial capital at this critical moment -- or whether by upping the ante, Jones will be able to provide long-overdue resources for Richmond's crumbling schools and create an economic catalyst in the heart of the city simultaneously.

Maybe Jones will be able to create former Mayor Wilder's "City of the Future" after all.

Baseball's Emotional and Financial Game Continues

At least I don't live in New York, where the debate surrounding baseball has to do with a proposed billion dollar stadium/entertainment complex for the New York Yankees. Here in Richmond, we're only chasing a project one-third the size of the nationally acclaimed Yankees -- for a team that doesn't yet exist.

And people say Richmond isn't a visionary town.

Today's Times-Dispatch lets two Richmonders frame the stadium debate. The question, it seems, isn't whether there should be a new stadium but simply where it should be. Josh Dare and Charlie Diradour each make a compelling case -- one for baseball in Shockoe Bottom, the other to continue playing ball on the Boulevard.

Dare writes:

I was part of a small group of businessmen who sought to bring baseball downtown several years ago. At the time, we had envisioned a ballpark along the banks of the James in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Building on the site where MeadWestvaco is now building its corporate headquarters.

But was this the best venue? To find out, we retained a consultant, a national authority on such matters, and charged him with evaluating various downtown locations. He analyzed 30 different sites, and his conclusion: Not only was Shockoe Bottom the premier locale for a downtown ballpark in Richmond, it is the best site anywhere in the country.

If he is right, why has this Boulevard versus the Bottom debate been languishing for all these years, especially in light of what so many other cities have determined -- that downtown baseball spurs economic development, provides a catalyst for urban renewal, and creates an anchor for family-friendly entertainment?

Diradour counters:

The Richmond Metropolitan Authority (RMA) owns a well-located piece of land -- with The Diamond at its center -- that has for many years served our area well as a place for families to go to a ballgame and enjoy a great evening.

The means of ingress and egress to The Diamond are obviously better than those in the Bottom. County residents, who made up two-thirds of the Richmond Braves fan base over the years, are represented on the RMA, and many of them can access the Boulevard ballpark much easier than they could the alternate site.

Richmonders -- and that term must include our county neighbors for us to truly achieve regional cooperation -- need a baseball team, and for that matter a truly great place for that team to play and for us to congregate to spend family time on a spring or summer evening.

The organic development along the Boulevard and in nearby Scott's Addition that has taken place over the past years proves that it is a place on the precipice of greatness. Let's use property we already own -- and a facility we already own -- and by citizen agreement either build a new stadium on the ground where The Diamond stands now or rehabilitate The Diamond.

The NYTimes' editorial page today tackles the Yankee's proposed stadium with a much more important question -- at what cost?

Both debates are important.

One is an emotional argument, primarily, even when it is framed in terms of ease of access or benefits to surrounding neighborhoods or jobs generated. Richmond has done a pretty good job of allowing that argument to play out -- it's essentially the argument framed by the series of public presentations delivered by the development firm interested in building a Shockoe Bottom baseball/entertainment mecca. Highwoods' presentations have been excellent PR.

The financial argument -- in Richmond -- remains superficial, at best. Superficial, I'd argue, because it has essentially been driven by two slices of data that should be suspect, at best.

The first slice of data has to do with timing. The proposal delivered by Highwoods, the proposal used in all of the community meetings to-date, is built on economic models that made sense in late 2007 -- before the economy took a sharp stumble, the housing market contracted dramatically, and consumers pulled back on their discretionary spending.

The second slice of data has to do with origin. Most of the numbers -- project scope, cost to taxpayers, revenue generated, square footage of retail and commercial and housing space -- come from the developer itself. I've seen little in the way of independent analysis, particularly analysis built on new economic forecasting.

There is some hope that the Mayor's request for new analysis is more than a delay tactic or window-dressing for a done deal. Yes, it involves the same firms that helped vet the project more than a year ago, but presumably these firms will be able to objectively factor in the economic shift that has taken place since they last ran the numbers.

And it's not as if the original numbers -- which looked at both the Boulevard and the Shockoe Bottom options -- were firmly in favor to Shockoe Bottom to begin with. Style Weekly has not been shy about its critique of the whole baseball debacle, but editor Scott Bass does a good job of explaining some of the numbers:

In the process of concluding that removing The Diamond from the Boulevard would open the area to potentially 305,000-square-feet of retail development, the consultants -- Davenport & Company, Chmura Economics & Analytics and Washington-D.C.-based Economics Research Associates -- performed a market demand analysis of both the Boulevard and Shockoe Bottom sites.

Their analysis found enough demand to generate $115 million in gross retail sales on the Boulevard. In the Bottom, they concluded there was demand for approximately 65,000 square feet of retail with gross sales of $26.5 million.

That’s a long way from 192,000 square feet of retail and more than $90 million in gross sales proposed by Highwoods Properties, the developer behind the $363 million ballpark development in Shockoe Bottom. While there are other components to the project, including condos, office buildings and a hotel, the proposed retail development is key to making the numbers work.

Retail sales, including restaurants, generate the lion’s share of the tax revenue in the proposal, which would be diverted away from city coffers to pay for the $70 million ballpark. The developers are projecting that Shockoe Center will generate $6.59 million retail, admissions and meals taxes annually, or more than 73 percent of the revenue needed to cover the bond payments.

The good news for the Richmond region might be two-fold.

For fans of baseball, the conversations that are happening today make a lot more sense that former Mayor Wilder's plans to throw the ballfield in a polluted tract of land along the eastern edge of Richmond.

And for fans of fiscal responsibility, there are increased opportunities for additional debate about some revised numbers -- and for a broader conversation to engage the surrounding juridictions to take place.

Perhaps when baseball returns to Richmond, it will be in a place and at a cost that makes sense for everyone in the region -- not just the developers.

Apparently, It Costs Good Money to Play Ball These Days

On the one hand, it's good to see Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones not accepting pre-recesssion projections as a good basis for decision making when it comes to a proposed ballpark and surrounding mixed-use development in Shockoe Bottom. Jones has set aside $100,000 to pay a team of outside consultants to assess the $363 million development. On the other hand -- to echo Paul Goldman -- don't taxpayers pay several entire departments of the city to assess financial transcations and investments, and economic development ideas?

The Times-Dispatch's Will Jones has a good summary of the decision, the scope of the study and a few other ballfield tidbits in this morning's paper:

The two-month feasibility study is being done by Davenport & Co. of Richmond, along with Economic Research Associates of Washington and Chmura Economics & Analytics of Richmond.

The firms will check the market assumptions behind the restaurants, offices, housing and other elements that would be built, as well as the viability of the plan to finance the ballpark with bonds backed by tax revenue generated by the new development.

The analysis also will consider potential costs to the city and the direct and indirect impacts on jobs and taxes, according to the city's contract with Davenport.

Goldman, a former advisor to former mayor Doug Wilder and a candidate for the mayoral role last year, is not impressed, the paper reports.

But Paul Goldman, who ran for mayor last fall before endorsing Jones, said he can't understand why the city needs to spend $100,000 to determine whether the development is viable.

"That's why you have a finance department," said Goldman, who as a policy adviser to Wilder critiqued a previous plan for a ballpark in Shockoe Bottom.

Baseball Development Misses Key Opportunities (Of Course)

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a neophyte when it comes to baseball.

I mean, I played a few seasons as a kid, cheered Chipper Jones on a couple of times here in Richmond, know how to throw a few stats around, but essentially baseball is about as important to me as Spiro Agnew. Which means I don't really care whether a baseball stadium is built in Shockoe Bottom or not.

I've been following the Great Stadium Debate, looking for a reason to throw Buttermilk & Molasses' support in one direction or the other -- or to drive up my readership with a daily series of incisive, and insightful, posts. At the end of the day, however, I'm left with two relatively simple observations that I'm surprised aren't leading one debate or another.

Observation the First: Location. Why hasn't someone made a grand end-run play to built a new ballfield in the one place in the region that surely can guarantee turnout? That's right, put the new ball field smack beside the Poseidon Aquatic Center and Kicker's fields at Chippenham Parkway and Route 10 in Chesterfield County. In addition to Chesterfield's burgeoning status as the center of sports in Central Virginia and its demographically perfect population, a stadium in Chesterfield could pull from the booming Fort Lee growth spike.

A stadium downtown might look pretty, and fit all of the lovely images we have of Shoeless Joe Jackson tucking a dime in the heel of his shoe for streetcar fare after every losing game, but it's just as contrived a location for a ball field as putting it atop the Short Pump Town Center would be.

The original ball fields were fields and abandoned lots. So was Chesterfield, once.

You want to talk regional cooperation? Let's see Richmond's leaders throw a curve ball for once.

Observation the Second: Economy. Someone mentioned it in passing during one hearing in North Richmond, but the developers apparently still haven't gotten the memo. By the time the American public has chewed down enough of its debt to become consumers again, we'll have a new economic paradigm in the United States. Oh, there will still be room for condominiums and downtown retail or mixed use development, but are Richmond's leaders really willing to be the bank on an $800 million development built on 2006 economic assumptions?

Giving the proposals (the Shockoe stadium and the companion North Boulevard development) some extra breathing room while the economy recovers is a bit like giving a lung cancer patient an extra day off of work. We're going to no more be in a position to digest $800 million in commercial development in the City of Richmond in August of 2009 than we were in February.

What the city -- and the developers, for that matter -- ought to be doing is retooling the entire proposal around bright green development centered around an energy technology enterprise zone that attracts the best and the brightest (and the richest) from the emergent field of ET. Then throw in a few Applebee's and Starbuck's around the edges.

At the end of the day, Richmond will probably move forward with both the Shockoe ball field development and the North Boulevard mixed use development. But the city and its partners in the development community are missing an opportunity to push two major pieces down the field -- a forward-looking regional approach to sports with a Chesterfield ball field, and a creative approach to economic development that avoids the somewhat withered retail approach so popular a decade ago.

Live Blogging Highwoods Baseball Presentation, Part 2

As Brian Bostick wraps up the 50 minute download on why Shockoe Bottom is perfect for baseball, and the Boulevard is perfect for "amateur athletics," we prepare for the crowd of @150 to let loose with questions.

Councilmembers Charles Samuels and Chris Hicks are in the house. Or school, as the case may be.

This isn't baseball. It's college basketball. The presenters are running the clock down. These guys are killing me.

Here come the questions. It's 7:26 p.m. The applause was extremely muted.

No, wait. Here come the councilmembers. But first the President of the Rosedale Civic Association: "We don't want to see baseball leave the Boulevard." A smattering of applause.

Ginter Park resident: "I used to go to Parker Field because I worked there. I'm for keeping the baseball stadium on the Boulevard. I think it's a good area for you guys to develop."

And then he wanders off track to talk about high schools, and then wanders back. "If you do go to Shockoe Bottom, that's cool, that's okay with me, because I'm going to go where the baseball is."

New person: "I'm having a little trouble seeing how the baseball field generates all of this economic development... if that's the catalyst, why? And if so, what will the catalyst be for the Boulevard project?"

"That's a good question. Both of them," says the developer representative. Goes on to talk about the ball field in the Bottom being the vehicle to address the stormwater/flood issues. "When you pull the Diamond out of the Boulevard ... and move the Ashe Center ... you create a large area of land that can be developed. But I think you'll still have a lift from the amateur sports on the Boulevard."

New question: "You say there will be 918 jobs created. Are they part-time, full-time, what are they? The apartments that go there, will they be affordable housing. You mentioned earlier the revenue stream starts in 2013... what year is it?"

Answers: Yes. Mixed use housing. Baseball on the Boulevard in 2010 and 2011. Baseball in the Bottom in 2012.

"I did not move here to have Short Pump on the James," questioner continues to applause.

New questioner. "There is more unused retail space in this country than there has ever been... I think you have to ask yourself, this neighborhood does not support strong retail development that you're looking for. We have office structures downtown that are vacant. Were kind of turning into a disposable society and I think we ought to start looking at structures that are there..."

She continues, "I'm not quite sure given our current economics with so many people unemployed, retailers not doing anything, I'm not sure about the financing. I think we need to know what are the vacancy rates for Tobacco Row apartments, for retailers downtown."

Bostic answers, "Excellent points, which is why nothing is going to happen until 2012. We're in a cycle, and it's not a pretty one. We completely agree with you, how could anybody not agree with you. It's right on the mark. But it's going to change."

Question #4 from the Baseball on the Boulevard guy: "Will you gentlemen here tonight guarantee us that you will not ask the city to back the bonds either financially or morally?"

Developer says no. [Clarification, per Peter Boisseau: The question was will you guarantee the City have any obligation? Paul Kreckman: No, the City will have no obligation. The questioner pursued: Will you guarantee that? Paul Kreckman: Yes.]

Questioner continues: "I've heard the number $60 million for the ballpark. I've also heard $70 million. Is it 60 or 70?"

The ballpark is $60 million. The plaza is another $10 million.

Lots of minor questions around the edges. The steam has left the room.

7th District resident (grew up in Northside): "My question is more for minor league baseball. I want to know how they're going to help the kids in the community... we have a lot of kids here in the city who have dreams of being baseball players, who have dreams of being  minority businessperson. I want to know how minor league baseball is going to help those kids."

Bostic says the key difference between the Braves and this new potential team is that the new team will be wholly locally owned. "We are committed to integrating urban youth" in this baseball venture, he says.

New questioner says he's familiar with Highwoods' work. "The plan I've seen for the Bottom is discouraging, to say the least... I really have strong reservations of what you're actually going to do, and I know you're not going to sit here tonight and tell us what you're going to do because it's vague... you're providing us with a false choice."

"I need to know as a taxpayer and as a person who is going to raise amuck if I don't know what is going up a mile from where I live," he says. "Why have you divested land back to the city and to VCU near the tracks (at the Boulevard site)."

Applause.

Answer: "The reason we changed from the original plan is because we talked to people in this area... I can't tell ou exactly what's going to be in that red zone you saw, because it hasn't been planned... it stands behind Shockoe Center in that we can't do anything with the Boulevard property for a number of years... so we have the time, and it's important that we take the time, to talk about it."

Answer: "What we want to do is create neighborhoods that are part of Richmond, and don't look like they were brought in and grafted on. We're certainly not afraid to come back and to talk to you. We've heard a lot of things from around the city."

Question: "I know some of the folks here... and I don't doubt their intent... but we need to keep our eye on the ball... whether baseball stays on the Boulevard or goes to the Bottom, change is coming to the Boulevard... the process that brought us here was flawed."

Me: Kicks the city's RFP in the teeth. Amen to that -- another closed process leading nowhere.

Question: "How did that happen? How did the charrette process that we just went through get ignored? What wasn't there a planning process" for the area that links two of the city's oldest neighborhoods?

Hilbert: "We could have certainly mandated a different process within Council, however I do believe that is the administration's responsibility to do that... and unfortunately, we have been put into positions where we have had to micromanage things, and I don't like that..."

Hilbert says the Wilder administration has done this before -- here, naming a new police chief, etc.

Hilbert: "I'd certainly like to give this a fair play. Just to... pull it back would be unfortunate, to not play this out."

Question: "But what about the public process?"

Hilbert: "The public process? This is just the beginning of it... what I think I hear you say is that there was not enough public process here... I'm ready for it to be open. Transparency is very important in government. Charles and I were the only two to vote against continuing the Master Plan... Charles and I were the only two who wanted an open process (in naming 7th district council rep)."

Discussing moves to 32 acres of Seminary-owned land that may be up for development.

Time to pack up and head home. Thanks for playing.