As Mayor Jeff Longwell touts everything a baseball park can do for Wichita, he points to several cities where he says new Minor League ballparks successfully spurred development.
Sports economists say that’s not usually what happens.
“In general, the idea that if you build it they will come — and if you build a sports facility and development will spring up around it — is a myth,” said sports economics journalist Neil deMause. Yet there’s no question that there’s thriving development around the ballparks that Longwell uses as his top examples. There is a question, though, if the ballparks can claim credit.
“Politicians have a way of selling what they’re trying to do, and many times they sell that . . . with promises of future benefits,” said Craig Depken, professor of economics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
“It’s not the politicians promising,” Longwell said of Wichita. “It’s the developers that are putting their money in.”
Oklahoma City, Charlotte and Durham, N.C., are some of the top places Longwell cites as development success stories when discussing a deal to lure Lou Schwechheimer and his Baby Cakes team from New Orleans.
The deal includes, in part, a $75 million stadium that the city would build where it has already demolished the longtime Lawrence-Dumont Stadium and several acres that the city would sell for $1 an acre to Schwechheimer and an unnamed investment group to develop. Longwell has previously said that without that part of the deal — which is not finalized — the team won’t come.
The city would pay for the ballpark by borrowing money through issuing bonds. It would use a mix of financing tools such as STAR bonds, tax increment financing and a community improvement district, which would allow the city to direct sales and property tax money generated in the area to help pay off the bonds.
“It doesn’t sound to me like a promising project,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College in Massachusetts.
(Read more: Wichita Eagle)