Buttermilk & Molasses

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.

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 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.

Live Blogging Highwoods Development Presentation on Baseball and the Boulevard

 

6:12 p.m. - Hanging out at Linwood Holton Elementary School's cafeteria with a growing handful of developers, PR flacks and community people. Plus a cameraman from Channel 8. The school's network is blocking my Twitter feed, so I'll periodically throw comments on Twitter from my iPhone. Follow @sarvay for the quick feed.

6:14 - The feed will work downward. The latest posts will be at the bottom. Because that just makes sense.

6:15 - Look for summary posts at North Richmond News and here at Buttermilk & Molasses later tonight or early tomorrow.

6:18 - Post your questions as comments and I'll try to get some answers.

6:22 - Crowd is up to about 20. Charlie Diradour with Baseball on the Boulevard just came over and introduced himself.

6:27 - Crowd just doubled. Should be starting momentarily. I tried to bait the Channel 8 guy into making a snarky comment about Lisa Schaffner and he wouldn't bite.

6:30 - And we're off. A plug for the pro-baseball on the Boulevard crowd in the form of a petition you can sign, if you'd like at iPetitions.

6:34 - "We thought that it was something to be done in this community, by the community, for the community. Not to the community. The last time we had someone come in and talk about baseball in Richmond, they were out-of-towners... we want to keep this as local as possible," says the Highwoods representative whose name I didn't catch.

6:35 - Some background. City put out RFP's for development around Main Street two years ago, and for the Boulevard project about a year ago. Highwoods won both. They were surprised.

6:40 - The Main Street project footprint is 27 acres. The Boulevard footprint is 65 acres. "You have two areas that in many ways are gateways to the city that are underdeveloped, underutilized, and the city believed when it put out the RFPs that it could do better."

"This is a generational opportunity for us to realign some major social infrastructure... we can accomplish a lot of objectives and I think the time really is now."

"We've done a lot of listening, and I'm convinced our plans have gotten better because of that."

6:42 - "I'm going to start off talking about Shockoe Center, because that is the first piece of the puzzle... our plan is to use an urban town center design, and we're going to be true to the urban architecture down there."

"To cure the floodplain issues, you need to have a large-scale development. It can be done with piecemeal development..."

6:43 - Good use of envrionmental buzzwords. Chesapeake Bay Act. Greenspace solutions.

6:45 - Here comes the financial education. "This financing plan is not built on the back of the taxpayers."

"This financing plan allows us to build as many schools afterwards as it does now."

"There is no city taxpayer liability on anything here... That was one of our guiding, fundamental philosophies."

"There are no existing city or state revenues used to support the financing... it is all new revenue that comes out of the project only." Any revenue from development sparked by this project will go to the city and state.

About 120 people in the room.

Projected revenue in 2013 is $8.4 million. The debt service is $5.2 million. There will be $3.2 million excess. Highwoods will give this to poor people.

They have a nice blue-and-green circle of arrows showing how the money will increase exponentially and pay off the federal deficit.

"We're looking at a three phase development. There is a section here that is outlined in red that is Phase 1. Phase 1 is the private development that has to happen at the same time as the ballpark in order to make it happen... it has to be built at the same time, it doesn't work if it isn't. We have another phase here which is VCU." (VCU wants to build a parking deck.)

"There's a Phase 3 which is even more speculative ... and we're not counting on that either." Phase 3 is luxury hotel and retail space.

Says Highwoods is committed to preserving and protecting Lumpkins Jail.

6:51 - "Now Phase 1 has a lot of construction jobs that goes with it. It also has a lot of permanent jobs."

"The retail component has been increased... The ground floor of the train station would also be rented out as retail, and the revenue income from that would go directly to the city."

6:52 - "Baseball really is the catalyst, the jazz."

"The ballpark is what gets the private investors to come forward and make the investment. Since October 27, we have had any number of retailers call us."

"There was a time when the Diamond was the envy of its league... over time, other cities have built better facilities and we're the ones who are out of step."

"I want you to think about the Diamond which is a tall structure of 12,000 seats." The proposed ball field has a lower sight-line and seats about 8,500.

"The team will operate and maintain the ballpark."

"What we need from the city? The city has about half of the land we need. We need some infrastructure, some sewer realignments and streets and sidewalks."

6:55 - "The benefits of Shockoe Center... and again, this is our neighborhood, too." Talks about Main Street Station as a multi-modal transportation center, the Downtown Master Plan, Lumpkin's Jail, new business for the 17th Street Farmer's Market and that it "unlocks Boulevard for redevelopment."

6:57 - In my head, I keep hearing Harry Shearer's voice calling out, "Monorail!"

6:58 - "Originally, we had planned something that didn't have any sports along the Boulevard."

"We went back to the drawing boards and we came back with something that is quite a bit better. It's a combination of amateur sports and economic development."

"We're going to retain sports, amateur sorts, on the Boulevard."

More retail, more residential, less office.

"Why not replace the Diamond? Part of the problem is there are too many site constraints."

"Everyone coming into town and looking at our situation has concluded that downtown is the best place for baseball. I've been reading a lot of blogs lately... one said, "If you build it they will come. We did not build it and they left."

That's original. Wish I had come up with that turn of a phrase.

Droning on about drop in attendance numbers at the Diamond.

"The reason that we can't look to keep baseball on the Boulevard is that we don't have enough room... there are so many constraints... If we're going to leave baseball on the Boulevard, it's your money. It's truly taxpayer money. But if we go downtown and use the revenue bonds, it's not your money."

"The plan we have for the Boulevard takes the 65 acres and divides it into three zones." They are mixed use development, city-owned property and VCU athletics.

7:03 - The Ashe Center would move to the south end of the development. Not quite the other side of the tracks, but close.

7:05 - I really like how he makes it feel like they're throwing the Boulevard a bone. We ca have some really nice amateur sports. Come on, guys! Amateurs!

Here's Brian Bostick to talk about baseball. He's the guy buying the team.

7:08 - "Richmond has played baseball on the Boulevard for 50 years, actually for 54 years. I know this because my grandfather raised the money to build Parker Field.

"550,000 people came to the Diamond in 1993... last year, 289,000 people came to the Diamond."

"Virtually every ballpark that has been built in the last 15 years has been built either in the central downtown district or adjacent to it."

"What's around the physical Diamond is what matters most. It's your land, you own it. Right now it's a parking lot that sits empty."

"If you can extract the baseball stadium out of the Boulevard area, it comes to life."

Monorail!

"The key is not the baseball stadium. It's the team."

"We've worked very closely with minor league baseball." (Hey, Will Jones, are you cribbing my notes tonight?)

"Family and community. That's what baseball is all about. And 70% of the people who go to baseball games in the minor leagues could care less what the score is... we're missing that, and we have a void, and we need to get it back."

"I have an agreement with minor league baseball... and they think [Richmond] is a great baseball town."

He's making me weep. Really.

When he shuts up, this crowd is going to start chewing on his bones.

I'll be starting a new post to capture the audience rending of the developer bones.

Questioning Movieland on the Boulevard

Later this week, I'm interviewing one of the owners of Bow Tie Partners, the fine folks who are bringing 17 screens of cinematic splendor to the seam between Northside and the Fan on February 27.

What questions do you have about Movieland that you'd like me to ask Ben Moss?

Boulevard or the Bottom: Slave Trail Remains Key Issue

For many Richmonders, the city's role in the global slave trade of the late 18th and 19th century is an invisible secret. In recent years, that's been changing as the outlines of Richmond's Slave Trail -- the tortuous journey African slaves took from boats unloading downriver from Manchester to the auctioneer's block in Shockoe Bottom -- have started to take shape.

It's no wonder that the re-proposed plan to bring baseball to the Bottom -- smack in the middle of the Slave Trail and a few hundred yards from Lupkin's Slave Jail and a historic Negro burial ground (half-buried itself beneath I-95) -- is raising eyebrows again. Even if developers took pains yesterday to point out that their project would be sensitive to the area's difficult history.

Style Weekly's Scott Bass wrote about the issue over the weekend, before full details on Highwoods Properties' proposal were made public:

Delores McQuinn, who led a push five years ago to squash a similar proposal, says the area in the Bottom is in the direct path of a proposed slave history trail. Just east of the 17th Street Farmer’s market, archeologists are still excavating the site where historians believe the old Lumpkin’s Jail once stood.

“I know I am adamantly against putting a ballpark in Shockoe Bottom,” McQuinn says. “I just don’t think this is the right place.”

She and other members say it’s unlikely such a proposal would be approved by City Council by year’s end, if ever, and pushing something of this magnitude now is likely to create tension between the developers and a new city administration come January. “I don’t see why they would be interested in trying to shove this thing through,” she says.

TD columnist Michael Paul Williams picks up the ball this morning with more details:

Project officials, who briefed members of The Times-Dispatch's staff yesterday, say they will work in conjunction with the Richmond Slave Trail Commission to construct the Slave Trail "as an integral part of the development."

Space would be reserved, most likely in the Seaboard Building, for interpretive elements and a genealogical research institute. Plans call for monuments, plaques or other items to tell the story of the slave trade in Shockoe Bottom and beyond.

The project also call for an office building in the vicinity of Lumpkin's jail, though the developers hasten to add that they want to preserve the jail site.

City Council Vice President Delores L. McQuinn, the chairwoman of the Richmond Slave Trail Commission, had not met with the project developers. But she sounded like a hard sell yesterday.

She said the developers had merely appropriated the commission's plans for Shockoe Bottom. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

"I would love for someone to come in and help develop it, the vision for the Slave Trail," she said. "I just don't know if it's appropriate for a big baseball stadium to be put there, too. What we've been through the last few years as relates to a stadium being in the area, I'm opposed to that. But I'm still going to be open to what they have to say."

There are plenty of hurdles between Highwoods' dual Boulevard/Bottom proposals and the first pitch in a new stadium -- the politics of Richmond's forgotten history should be an issue that is not left in the dugouts.

Never Play Ball with a Lame Duck

Earlier this fall, Richmond BizSense and Times-Dispatch sportswriter John O'Connor broke various pieces of the news that development plans were already in the works for a possible baseball stadium on the Boulevard as a replacement for the Diamond.

News of the Peter Kirk/Robert Bobb proposal emerged even as three development proposals for a 60+ acre tract of land surrounding the existing ball field were being reviewed by the Wilder administration; Kirk, Bobb and Virginia Beach development company Armada Hoffler were among the groups pitching plans for the North Boulevard development project.

Within the past week, baseball in Richmond has been kicked around the city boundaries like a soccer ball -- with outgoing Mayor Doug Wilder stating that baseball was coming to Richmond, but not necessarily to the Boulevard; at least three of the mayoral candidates stating publicly that they saw the Boulevard property as the most likely location for a new stadium; and the TD's Michael Martz reporting this morning that the developers were sharpening their pencils, ready to alter their project plans.

... Bobb, now president of the District of Columbia State Board of Education, said yesterday that he and his partners got a clear message that Mayor L. Douglas Wilder has a different part of the city in mind.

"Downtown seems to be a preferred location," said Bobb, who served as city manager for 11 years before working as the top administrator of Oakland, Calif., and Washington.

And that's where both projects -- a new baseball stadium and the development of one of the largest available tracts of city-owned land -- may run into trouble.

While both projects have run afoul of slower-than-expected schedules and poor decisionmaking, trying to shoehorn either into the last four months of the Wilder administration is a sure-fire recipe for failure.

Unfortunately, the renovation or replacement of the Diamond -- whether on the Boulevard or in Shockoe Bottom -- will generate far smaller returns for the Richmond region than the forward-thinking redevelopment of the Boulevard tract.

The Kirk/Bobb/Armada Hoffler proposal recognizes that, even if Bobb publicly curbs his enthusiasm -- presumably until Wilder's clock runs out. Because while Wilder is fixated with Shockoe Bottom, the other candidates suggest they are (at a minimum) open to keeping a ballfield at the Boulevard site:

Paul Goldman, William J. Pantele and Lawrence E. Williams Sr. emphasized different points but all said they favor keeping baseball on the Boulevard near The Diamond if Richmond can lure a franchise to replace the Class AAA Braves.

Robert J. Grey Jr. and Dwight Clinton Jones didn't object to the Boulevard site but indicated a need for flexibility.

Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, who isn't seeking a second term, suggested this week that the Bottom, not the Boulevard, should be considered for a new stadium as part of the city's review of development proposals for both areas.

Wilder threw the Boulevard under the proverbial bus earlier this month -- though not for the first time.

Wilder, whose term ends at the end of the year, said the city's process to identify potential developers and to solicit their ideas has "produced recommendations that are bullish on baseball, but the majority of the responses, along with sentiments conveyed by Minor League Baseball, appear to favor baseball in a location other than the Boulevard."

In an interview, Wilder said developers and consultants agreed that the Shockoe Bottom site might be favorable for a stadium, but he stressed that the wishes of the community also must be considered.

Wilder said the developers interested in the Boulevard site are willing to include a ballpark in their plans, but they believe it may not be the best use of the property, with convenient access from Interstates 64 and 95. He would not elaborate on what alternatives are being considered in the corridor, where a movie complex is in the works.

Not entirely true -- the Kirk/Bobb proposal situates a ballfield on the southern end of the Boulevard property, where the city fleet maintenance facility is currently sited.

But here's the glitch: Whatever deal the Wilder administration strikes with one of the three developers (the Kirk/Bobb group is the only one who's gone public with details) is going to be subject to review by an incoming administration.

Presumably, the developers have dealt with this sort of political musical chairs before. And while there may be some exciting proposals on the table at the end of October, rest assured that they'll change in January.

I Don't Hate Baseball. I Hate the Politics of Baseball.

Hot on the heels of the revelation that the Diamond may be razed as part of an ambitious 60+ acre development along North Boulevard, mayoral candidate Paul Goldman seems ready to chain himself to the concrete structure:

"First, I reject any plan to bulldoze the Diamond and eliminate any baseball stadium from the current area, indeed that would be tantamount to the Wilder Administration having driven baseball out of Richmond, as there is no other viable location for a Triple AAA or Double AA stadium in the City."

If area politicians had spent half the time resolving issues with Richmond's schools or doing yeoman's work building consensus on the Downtown Master Plan that they've spent yammering about baseball, Richmond would be well on its way to becoming a thriving metropolis.

Leave it to Goldman to wrap himself in a box of Crackerjacks, as he calls on voters to join him in another round of "Take Me Out To the Ballgame." If Doug Wilder and Bill Pantele support it, we should be dead-set against it -- or so Goldman's reasoning seems to go.

It's not that I hate baseball, or that I don't want a new Triple A team rolling into town. Bring it on. We could stand a little team spirit around this place.

But this endless fixation with the Diamond is yet another example of the tree getting in the way of the forest.

What Wilder -- and Goldman -- don't seem to understand is that this is a regional issue, not a City of Richmond issue.

If the Richmond region wants a baseball team, then this needs to be a regional conversation with a regional vision. And while a redeveloped entertainment destination along North Boulevard might be an ideal spot to throw a new stadium, it's certainly not the only site in the region that could support a new ball team. In fact, it's probably not even the best site.

And still politicians -- in Richmond, in Chesterfield, in Henrico -- continue to lead with a myopic view of the Richmond region. What sits in their backyard is as clear as the day is bright. Travel beyond their jurisdiction and suddenly things aren't so clear.

It's why Chesterfield continues to fund GRTC but has virtually no bus service to help its residents get from home to work.

It's why City Council representatives in Richmond have conversations about starting new farmer's markets but don't lead a charge to support and enhance one of the nation's oldest markets in the heart of the city -- one owned and operated by the city itself.

It's why members of the regional organization that owns the Diamond weren't even aware that the Wilder administration had bungled negotiations with the Braves franchise until the Times-Dispatch covered it.

It's about vision, cooperation and the ability to see possibility beyond your own narrow interests.

That said, there is another issue at stake here.

Richmond needs to grow. It needs to grow its residential base, and it needs to rebuild a private sector that does two things -- brings revenue to the city and delivers jobs and services to those residents who already live here, and those Richmond hopes to attract.

Waiting for the baseball issue to resolve itself and deferring on an opportunity to revitalize a 60+ acre economic dead zone is a lose-lose approach. The Boulevard Project has been in the works for well over a year; I've been covering it since last October. Calling it a lame-duck project, as Goldman does, is not only disengeneous it's bad politics.

Even as Paul Goldman represents himself as a change agent -- and, in fact, wrestles with more ideas in a day than most candidates will touch the entire campaign -- his knee-jerk reaction to the Boulevard Project is another reflection of what happens when politics gets in the way of opportunity.

When the three proposals for the Boulevard Project are unveiled in the coming weeks, it may well turn out that the Wilder administration has fouled out. But it may have hit a home run.

Let's give the administration some credit for moving forward with the transformation of a significant swath of North Richmond.

In the meantime, if Goldman wants play ball, he might start by calling for the region to come together to talk about it.