FLORIDA: The Fish have been angling for new digs seemingly since the day in 1993 that Chuck Carr took his first hacks in the batter's box. There are two time-honored tactics for convincing the public that your team needs a new stadium: make a championship run and hope the excitement generates enthusiasm for throwing public money at your club, or tank so badly that you can claim fans will never so much as smell the postseason without new digs. As the Marlins have gone from champions to cellar-dwellers and back again, their rotating owners (Wayne Huizenga, John Henry, Jeffrey Loria) have tried both, with similarly fruitless results.

 

The latest plan--announced by Loria's stepson David Samson the day of the Marlins' World Series victory parade, natch--sounds promising on the surface: a $325 million retractable-roofed stadium, financed in part by county hotel tax funds and sales tax rebates. That is, unless you remember that it's nearly an identical plan to the one first hatched three years ago by Henry, right down to renaming the team the "Miami Marlins" in appreciation for the public loot. That proposal crashed and burned when Governor Jeb Bush killed a proposed cruise-ship tax that would have funded it, and its latest incarnation could face a similar fate. There's a $115 million gap remaining in the finance plan, the city of Miami must agree to donate land (likely the site of Miami Arena, built at public expense in 1988 and abandoned just 11 years later by both the Heat and Panthers for new taxpayer-funded digs up the coast), and Miami is exploring its legal options for challenging $50 million in hotel-tax money that would be diverted from its convention-center expansion budget. There's also the nagging question of whether Samson's cost projections are reliable, given that Henry's near-identical plan was estimated at $60 million more, in 2000 dollars.

 

Though Marlins execs have never stopped griping about the unsuitability of Pro Player Stadium for baseball--when Game Three of the Series suffered a rain delay, it was as if God Himself had cast a vote on a stadium referendum--the team's real problem is the albatross of a lease that Huizenga designed as a way to siphon off funds from the team while crying poverty. (Economist Andrew Zimbalist estimated that in the 1997 championship year, it enabled the former garbage-hauling king to turn a $14 million profit into a $34 million paper loss.) What really needs to happen, says Zimbalist, is "Huizenga ought to renegotiate the lease. If he doesn't, they'll probably get a new stadium, and he won't get any money out of it. Pro Player is a decent stadium, and with a decent lease, that place can work."

full of inaccuracies

full of inaccuracies

such as.............

abandoned just 11 years later by both the Heat and Panthers for new taxpayer-funded digs up the coast

Panthers lease ran out and they moved out before the Heat did. They imply they both moved to the same arena at the same time, which is not true.

 

That proposal crashed and burned when Governor Jeb Bush killed a proposed cruise-ship tax that would have funded it, and its latest incarnation could face a similar fate.

 

The governor didn't kill it this time, he has stated that if the state needs to contribute a reasonable amount would be backed by him. That is why their is a bill being drafted for a $60 million/30 year tax rebate for the Marlins.

FLORIDA: The Fish have been angling for new digs seemingly since the day in 1993 that Chuck Carr took his first hacks in the batter's box.

full of inaccuracies

 

Pose started on opening day, 1993. :lol

What really needs to happen, says Zimbalist, is "Huizenga ought to renegotiate the lease. If he doesn't, they'll probably get a new stadium, and he won't get any money out of it. Pro Player is a decent stadium, and with a decent lease, that place can work."

It's a good point. It's a very good point. Although I don't think Huizenga will offer to renogotiate until this stadium thing looks like more of a reality.

the reason for pushing the stadium now is because the money is there. The Marlins are putting together the package, but it takes time. They can do this. If you can buy a house, then why rent an inadequate apartment?