Downtown Ballparks as Urban Amenities

[tufsu1]

This article ties nicely in with some of the images Lakelander posted last week from Birmingham

http://bettercities.net/article/minor-league-ballparks-downtown-amenities-20246

[fsquid]

I remember when Autozone Park was built in Memphis.  Many people said it would never work because "no one wanted to go downtown".  They then led AAA in attendance for the next half decade.

[Wacca Pilatka]

I remember when Autozone Park was built in Memphis.  Many people said it would never work because "no one wanted to go downtown".  They then led AAA in attendance for the next half decade.

That's a really nice park.

[fsquid]

I remember when Autozone Park was built in Memphis.  Many people said it would never work because "no one wanted to go downtown".  They then led AAA in attendance for the next half decade.

That's a really nice park.

every now and then my hometown does something right.

[thelakelander]

Minor league ball parks in Birmingham and Montgomery, AL from last week:

Birmingham

Birmingham's new ballpark is located between DT and UAB. The area is still in the process of redevelopment but there's a nice urban park next door, some infill multi-family and a craft brewer across the street.









Montgomery

Montgomery's ballpark is located within a warehouse district on the edge of downtown. The park was built into the side of what appears to be a 19th century warehouse. At street level, the warehouse features retail space and entrances to the ball park.  The second floor of the warehouse has sky boxes.  Across the street, a former rail siding between additional warehouses has been converted into a pedestrian promenade lined with bars and restaurants.  The upper floors feature lofts and the street level includes a mix of retail and parking (inside the warehouses). The new convention center, which includes a large hotel and street level restaurants of its own, is located on the other side of the warehouses converted to entertainment uses.  In general, downtown Montgomery is pretty dead.  However, those three or four blocks are pretty active (lot more foot traffic than you'd encounter in DT Jax), simply because of a compact mix of complementing uses.

[simms3]

DT Ballparks are most certainly amenities that drive activity and help define areas!  From MLB, thinking:

Wrigley in Chicago (Wrigleyville neighborhood, which abuts Boystown/Lakeview, all my favorite areas in the city there)

Fenway in Boston, which defines its own area

Camden Yards in Baltimore (I've never been so I've only heard about this park)

AT&T Park in SF

Even the Braves organization is in talks with the city of Atlanta to turn the parking lots around Turner into private mixed-use development that revolves around the stadium and the area (Grant Park to the east).

Arenas and football stadiums simply don't provide the same benefits.

[simplesimon]

http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_103.pdf

This is a very interesting paper that examines the economic impact of using proffesional sports as an engine to drive urban economic growth.

Humphreys, is a leading sports economist from the University of Alberta. While at the University of Illiinois, he was commisioned by the CATO Institute to perform a study on the development of Nationals Park in Wash D.C. it debunks many myths about the effects of proffesional sports on urban development.

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/bp89.pdf

[simms3]

Similarly (lots of graphics):

http://www.arch.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/StadiumPresentationOptimized2.pdf

This was an investigative article using GT Planning as a source on football fields, in contrast:

http://clatl.com/atlanta/the-stadium-effect/Content?oid=6296522

[thelakelander]

http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_103.pdf

This is a very interesting paper that examines the economic impact of using proffesional sports as an engine to drive urban economic growth.

Humphreys, is a leading sports economist from the University of Alberta. While at the University of Illiinois, he was commisioned by the CATO Institute to perform a study on the development of Nationals Park in Wash D.C. it debunks many myths about the effects of proffesional sports on urban development.

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/bp89.pdf

Those reports seem to focus more on the role/economics of professional sports in general.  However, the key within an urban setting is locating a number of complementing land uses, attractions and amenities within a pedestrian scale setting.  From that standpoint, it doesn't matter whether we're talking about ballparks, retail, wholesale, manufacturing, hotels, convention centers or even rail stations.

Focusing this idea, just in terms of minor league ballparks, it visually appears the downtown economic impact/image partially generated by Montgomery's ballpark is much higher than Jax's.  There, the ballpark is one of many attractions within a two to three block radius of one another.  When there is an event (baseball game, concert, tournament etc.) at the ballpark, it pulls people to the restaurants and bars a block away.  When the ballpark is closed, the convention center and the interactive riverfront park on the other block does the same for those ancillary businesses.  When they're hosting events at the same time, the area really comes alive.  The ending result is Montgomery has an area within its urban core where there is always something going on. Thus, those ancillary businesses stay open for extended hours in comparison to similar businesses in DT Jax.  There (within that little zone of DT Montgomery) you can find a place to eat breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning that isn't located inside of a hotel.  By the same token, you can find a bite to eat on a late Wednesday night.  In DT Jax, you'll struggle to find these areas.

This phenomenon of synergy is a simple result a packing several different types of uses (yet complementing) within a compact pedestrian scale setting.  Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a great example of this. In Jax, we don't have this because despite making similar financial investments, we've overlooked the importance of human scale design and clustering mixes of uses within close proximity of one another.

[Wacca Pilatka]

Lake, when you were in Birmingham, did you have a chance to see/photograph the new project to light/decorate the underpass by Sloss Furnaces?

[thelakelander]

I parked under the overpass when I visited Sloss. However, I didn't notice anything.

[fsquid]

the Montgomery ballpark looks really nice.