Saturday, May 01, 2004
Harbor Park Can Expand in Time for Use by Expos
Norfolk's always-entertaining bid for the Expos gets funnier by the day. Yesterday, after a meeting with architects for HOK Sports, city officials breathlessly declared that their 12,000-seat minor league stadium could be expanded all the way to 18,000 seats by next season if the Expos were to move there. It's unclear how the 50% larger crowds would actually get to the park, though, since Norfolk plans to build the club's permanent home in the parking lot of the existing facility.
Such an expansion would cost about $12 million. Assistant City Manager Shurl Montgomery said that the temporary park might have to be expanded to 25,000 seats, at a cost of $25 million or so -- "That could be quite expensive." But the frugal bureaucrat found a silver lining: “All of the seats in Harbor Park could be reused,” Montgomery said. “That would save a pretty nickel.”
Norfolk's promoters have launched a season ticket and luxury box sales drive, too. A $1,000 deposit will reserve one of the 70 luxury boxes they hope to lease for $75,000-$125,000 each. $100 will hold a season ticket, the cost of which would range from $800-$2,835/season. They forecast an average ticket price of $19, a range of $10-$35/seat.
The intrepid pair of stockbrokers behind Norfolk's bid have also launched a Web site, norfolkmlb.com. The very first statement on the home page is a lie:
"Hampton Roads (Norfolk area) is the largest metro area in the United States without a major league baseball team."
The Census Bureau thinks otherwise. Based on 2000 metro area populations, Norfolk/Hampton Roads is the seventh largest metro area without a baseball team. It has 700,000 fewer residents than Portland, Oregon. Sacramento, Orlando, Indianapolis, and San Antonio were also larger as of 2000, and Las Vegas has passed it since then. But I guess "America's Seventh Largest Unserved Market" or "Smaller Than San Antonio" wouldn't do much for the cause...
Here are the biographies of the two "principle officers." One graduated from college in 2001; the other, graduation date unspecified, was a trainee at Merrill Lynch before leaving to start this project. Fills you with confidence, doesn't it?
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Norfolk's always-entertaining bid for the Expos gets funnier by the day. Yesterday, after a meeting with architects for HOK Sports, city officials breathlessly declared that their 12,000-seat minor league stadium could be expanded all the way to 18,000 seats by next season if the Expos were to move there. It's unclear how the 50% larger crowds would actually get to the park, though, since Norfolk plans to build the club's permanent home in the parking lot of the existing facility.
Such an expansion would cost about $12 million. Assistant City Manager Shurl Montgomery said that the temporary park might have to be expanded to 25,000 seats, at a cost of $25 million or so -- "That could be quite expensive." But the frugal bureaucrat found a silver lining: “All of the seats in Harbor Park could be reused,” Montgomery said. “That would save a pretty nickel.”
Norfolk's promoters have launched a season ticket and luxury box sales drive, too. A $1,000 deposit will reserve one of the 70 luxury boxes they hope to lease for $75,000-$125,000 each. $100 will hold a season ticket, the cost of which would range from $800-$2,835/season. They forecast an average ticket price of $19, a range of $10-$35/seat.
The intrepid pair of stockbrokers behind Norfolk's bid have also launched a Web site, norfolkmlb.com. The very first statement on the home page is a lie:
"Hampton Roads (Norfolk area) is the largest metro area in the United States without a major league baseball team."
The Census Bureau thinks otherwise. Based on 2000 metro area populations, Norfolk/Hampton Roads is the seventh largest metro area without a baseball team. It has 700,000 fewer residents than Portland, Oregon. Sacramento, Orlando, Indianapolis, and San Antonio were also larger as of 2000, and Las Vegas has passed it since then. But I guess "America's Seventh Largest Unserved Market" or "Smaller Than San Antonio" wouldn't do much for the cause...
Here are the biographies of the two "principle
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