PUT THE STADIUM ON SOUTH ELM STREET

September 22, 2002 Sunday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: IDEAS; Pg. H3

by Edward Cone

It would be hard to top Major League Baseball when it comes to self-destructive tendencies. But here in the minor-league outpost of Greensboro, we're giving it our best shot.

On one side we have a group of would-be power brokers who keep finding their power broke and their stadium plans derailed. On the other side is a coalition that wants to keep a stadium from being built at the proposed Bellemeade site - and has the brass to ask the folks they are attacking to pay for their own inadequate alternative project.

And on the sidelines we have a feckless City Council that cannot or will not lead the way out of this mess, even though the best solution - a solution that goes far beyond baseball to benefit all of Greensboro - remains tantalizingly possible.

Greensboro's new minor-league ballpark should be located at the intersection of South Elm and Lee streets. This idea was considered by the Bats and Action Greensboro earlier this year, but they got no support from the city and fled when environmental cleanup costs loomed large.

The City Council, intimidated by entrenched interests and congenital naysayers, did not explore ways to fund the cleanup of this brownfield site. Restoring the blighted area would do exactly what the baseball people really want to do: Use a stadium as a spur to urban redevelopment. But instead of looking for creative methods of clearing the way for a $20 million private investment in a neighborhood of abandoned buildings, empty lots and poisoned soil, the council did nothing.

The site is still there, of course. It might be there forever if a stadium does not get built. And despite the proposed deal between the baseball boys and the county commissioners for the Bellemeade plan, not a dollar has changed hands and not a spadeful of dirt has been turned.

The Memorial Stadium renovation crowd, armed with a petition that hid its obstructionist goals behind the language of historic preservation, could block the current downtown plan. So there is still time to fix this mess and put the stadium where it belongs.

Cleaning up the blighted site would cost millions, which is why Jim Melvin's crew threw up its hands long ago. The City Council was content to let the opportunity pass. But Roch Smith Jr., the political activist who ran against Keith Holliday in the mayoral race last year, has done research that would seem to show that the Lee Street site is financially feasible. Smith's plan involves the use of federal funding - but not the Community Development Block Grants that the council has earmarked for other projects. He has identified other Department of Housing and Urban Development grants of up to $2 million that could be available for environmental remediation at the South Elm Street site. Smith also found $3.2 million in so-called Section 108 loans that could be applied to the project. Yes, this would commit the city to repay the low-interest loans, although Greensboro could turn around and lend the money to Action Greensboro instead.

In any case, the benefits of restoring the southern terminus of downtown go so far beyond baseball that even the PMHC (Professional Melvin-Haters Club) couldn't complain. The alternative to priming the pump for this enormous, privately funded project - doing nothing about an otherwise undevelopable eyesore - is unacceptable.

Smith also would like to see Action Greensboro purchase the Bats and donate the team to a trust that would own them for the community. A similar deal is in effect in Memphis, where the minor-league Redbirds have been owned by a nonprofit group since 1997. Profits from the team could be used to support education or youth programs; Action Greensboro would be responsible for losses. Smith thinks community ownership would solve political problems over the use of any public money for a stadium that benefits a privately held team.

Whether or not the community ownership aspect of Smith's plan is attractive to the Bats ownership and Action Greensboro, his financing strategies deserve to be taken seriously. Even if the city's due diligence shows these grants and loans to be unworkable, the larger idea of using the stadium project to clean up this blighted neighborhood is a winner.

Memorial Stadium is a nice old building that deserves to be preserved and used, but the people paying for a new stadium don't want to use it. Action Greensboro wants to put the stadium downtown and have it help rejuvenate the area. With some help from the City Council in putting it at South Elm and Lee, they could succeed on all counts.

Ed Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record most Sundays.

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