Will the Charlotte Knights be victors in their crusade for an uptown stadium?

Listen to this article

The Charlotte Knights have slain the lawsuit dragon delaying their new stadium in uptown.

Now, the Triple-A ball club must convince some skeptical Mecklenburg County commissioners that the project is still a good use of the land.

In their pitch, the Knights are pointing to Indianapolis, a city about 440 miles away, and what they call the success of that city’s minor league baseball team.

But some county commissioners are concerned that the stadium wouldn’t be the best thing to do with the site, especially since some of the financing arrangements may have to be changed from the original deal planned in 2007.

Four years ago, the team, which plays in Fort Mill, S.C., planned to pay for the $66 million stadium completely with private money. Now, even though the cost to build the stadium has fallen to about $50 million, Knights General Manager Dan Rajkowski has dropped hints to the county that he may ask for some kind of public/private partnership — and, perhaps, tax credits — to help finance the project.

Related story: Attorney strikes out in stadium fight

When the original plan was floated, the team was able to get a naming sponsor for the field, but that deal has fallen through and funding is now uncertain.

During a May 10 presentation to the county’s Economic Development Committee — comprised of county Commissioners Harold Cogdell, Karen Bentley, Neil Cooksey and George Dunlap — Rajkowski asked for more time to have substantial construction started on the stadium, to give the team until 2014 instead of this year.

Board members, though, have questioned the team’s resolve and whether the stadium would be a success in uptown.

“I’m concerned about the stadium sitting empty some 270 nights a year right in the middle of the city,” Cooksey said at the May 10 meeting.

Rajkowski said the facility could be a venue for concerts, corporate gatherings and other events, much like how Victory Field, the facility where the Indianapolis Indians play minor league baseball, is used.

Indeed, the economic impact of the Indians has become a selling tactic for the Knights in their quest to build their facility uptown. As in Indianapolis, the Knights’ stadium would be in the heart of the central business district.

Rajkowski said he was confident that the Knights could attract about the same number of fans as the Indians, as the demographics of Charlotte and Indianapolis are similar.

“We think we will attract another 50,000 to 100,000 people for other events at the stadium besides the Knights,” he said.

He estimated the stadium in uptown would have a five-year impact of $217 million and projected it would bring 600,000 visitors to uptown each year.

“This would also show spinoff development in the 3rd Ward,” he said.

The proposed site for the Knights stadium cost the county $24 million when it was bought in 2007 for the purposes of a public park. But as part of a deal with the Knights, the county agreed to build a park nearby and lease the land to the team for the field.

The Indians’ impact

Chris Herndon, spokesman for the Indians, said a 2007 marketing study showed the team and their facility at Victory Field had a $28 million annual impact on downtown Indianapolis’ economy, or the equivalent of about 665 jobs. The team has about 35 employees in its front office, Herndon said, adding that the Indians put hundreds of people “to work” during baseball season.

“When we moved downtown in 1996, there was one parking lot and a small hotel,” he said. “Today, we’re right across the street from many hotels.”

Building the stadium seemed to usher in a wave of growth in downtown Indianapolis, he said.

“We’re in a unique location,” he said. “The Pacers and Colts are obviously in Indianapolis and their stadiums are downtown and within walking distance. It is almost lined up down the block with the stadiums.”

Also near Victory Field is the Indianapolis Zoo, Indiana’s state museum and parks.

“I’d love to brag and say we were the cause of all that growth,” he said, “but really downtown Indianapolis is very compact and we were just a part of all that working together.”

The Indians play host to 72 home games each season, which is standard for most Triple-A ball clubs. City championships, county championships, state high school championship baseball games and some college baseball games are also played at the stadium.

In the 2007 economic impact study, events besides Triple-A baseball made up a large part of the economic impact, Herndon said.

Other Indianapolis economic development groups say they’ve seen a positive economic impact from the Indians.

“It is a very nice fit,” said Julia Watson, vice president of Marketing Indianapolis Downtown, a 501(c)3. “Victory Field actually opened as the best minor league ballpark in the country as rated by Sports Illustrated. They are one of our largest attractors downtown and they do bring in about 600,000 people a year.”

Businesses near Victory Field have seen an impact, too.

Janice Zoeller, spokeswoman for Indianapolis Marriott Downtown, said Victory Field boosts sales at Champions restaurant and sports bar, which is in the hotel.

Herndon said the International League has a schedule that makes a baseball stadium near an NBA and NFL franchise prosperous.

“The Colts and Pacers are winter teams for winter sports, so in the summer we do bring people to downtown Indianapolis that wouldn’t come otherwise,” he said. “The Knights would probably see the same thing, as the Bobcats and Panthers are Charlotte’s winter sports teams.”

But will the impact be the same in Charlotte?

The Knights have been studying the layout of Victory Field and are hoping to emulate not just its position in downtown, but also the atmosphere of Indianapolis’ center city.

There would be similarities between the two cities, with the proposed Knights field near Bank of America Stadium, where the Carolina Panthers might play football against the Indianapolis Colts. With the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the two cities also share an interest and reputation for auto racing.

But it remains to be seen whether the economic impact the Indians generate in their city can be reproduced in Charlotte.

The Indians are fifth in attendance out of 14 International League Triple-A ball clubs, according to 2010 rankings. In 2010, 569,969 people, or 8,028 per game, attended Indians games.

The Knights come in dead last in the same ranking, with a 2010 total attendance of 305,842, or an average of 4,248 fans each game.

In comparison, Charlotte Bobcats attendance for their recent season was 649,694, or 15,846 per game, while the Panthers saw 580,965 fans, or 72,620 per game, in their past season. The Charlotte Checkers, a minor league hockey team, had attendance of 252,486, or an average of 6,312 fans per game, in their recent season.

The stadium for the Knights would be in the block between Fourth Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Mint and Graham streets.

It would form, basically, a triangle between Bank of America Stadium and Time Warner Cable Arena, said Craig Depken, a University of North Carolina at Charlotte associate professor of economics.

Depken said the move might be beneficial to the team — it cuts out about an hourlong, roundtrip drive to Fort Mill for fans who live north of Charlotte — but he stopped short of saying it would be a hit for the city.

“Academic studies find dramatically lower impacts on (the economy) than the proponents’ studies do,” he said.

Each month, $20,000 goes down the drain

Plans for the Knights’ facility include the possibility of a park near the intersection of Church, Mint and Third streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

At the May 10 meeting, Dunlap wanted to know how much the city could make on the land if they just used it for parking. County General Manager Bobbie Shields said the city loses about $20,000 a month in parking lot revenue as it waits to see what happens with the Knights. Shields also said no developers had shown any interest in the plot of land for the proposed stadium.

Funding future unknown

Aside from questions about what sort of impact the Knights’ facility would have on Charlotte’s economy, there are questions about how the project will get funded.

As he made his presentation May 10, Rajkowksi could provide little clarity on when project funding would come together.

“We continue to work aggressively for funding,” he said. “But we’re not yet ready to give an update.”

Commissioners decided to let the team have more time to work that problem out.

An update on the project is expected at the commissioners’ June 14 meeting.

Scott Baughman can be reached at [email protected].