Does Overtown need a Florida Marlins infusion to become economically healthy again? Depends who you ask.

If You Build It…
Will a Florida Marlins Stadium Revitalize Overtown? Some City Commissioners Are Skeptical

“It’s very important we embrace baseball.”

By Ryan Brown

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and now, during his recent State of the County Address, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez, have stated their public support for building a new Florida Marlins stadium in downtown Miami.

Still missing, though, is support from Miami elected officials to use property taxes collected by the Community Redevelopment Agency to make the deal possible.

The CRA was ostensibly created to boost Miami’s blighted neighborhoods. The agency’s vision and mission statement, which can be found at its Web site, www.ci.miami.fl.us/CRA/about_mission.htm, states: “The CRA’s longstanding vision is to improve the quality of life for residents and stakeholders of the Overtown, Park West and Omni community redevelopment areas … achieving the complete eradication of slums and blight from the targeted areas.”

Will using the agency’s funds to construct a baseball stadium help achieve this goal?

So far three of five Miami city commissioners have told the SunPost they doubt funding the construction of a baseball stadium at the most recently proposed site, between Interstate 95 and Biscayne Boulevard, north of Northwest Third Street, will benefit the area.

“Arenas and stadiums do not benefit the area where they’re built,” says Tomas Regalado, District 4 commissioner and CRA board member. “Go back to the Miami Arena’s creation in the ‘80s. The area stayed the same.”

CRA Chair and District 5 Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones adds that “we need to first focus on the residents of Overtown. They’ve been waiting for a very long time for housing, for infrastructure improvements and support for businesses.”

District 2 Commissioner Marc Sarnoff even expressed the belief that it would be more beneficial to the neighborhood if Miami were to hand out money directly to the residents instead of to a baseball stadium.

The latest funding proposal for a new baseball stadium is still being worked out among the Marlins owners, Major League Baseball and state, county and city officials. Under a plan unveiled in September 2005, the Marlins were to invest $192 million in a $420 million, 38,000-seat stadium while the county was to pledge $138 million, the city of Miami $28 million and $32 million from parking revenues. The deal, which would have constructed the stadium beside the Orange Bowl, fell apart when the state refused to fund a $30 million shortfall.

Recently, State Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera said he would back a bill that would give the stadium $60 million.

According to its supporters, a Florida Marlins stadium would help revitalize the area by creating jobs.

“I view it as an economic development issue,” Governor Crist told the Sun-Sentinel in January. “It’s very important we embrace baseball.”

“I think it will bring a tremendous number of jobs, both directly and indirectly, and create substantial economic activity that will benefit the district,” Mayor Diaz told the Miami Herald, also in January.

And on Tuesday morning, Mayor Alvarez proclaimed during his State of the County Address that a “stadium for our home team makes sense” and that “combined with the American Airlines Arena, our Performing Arts Center and the still-to-come Museum Park, we have an entertainment hub in the making that will rival even the most cosmopolitan city.”

But Overtown activist Irby McKnight said construction of the Miami Arena in the late 1980s failed to revitalize Overtown. (Built as the home for the Miami Heat, the Miami Arena was declared obsolete by the team’s owners, prompting the construction of the $175 million American Airlines Arena in 1996.)

Not only does the Miami Arena’s failure to revitalize Overtown provide evidence contradicting the idea that the proposed stadium would benefit the surrounding area, but recent studies from around the country also cast doubt on the notion that publicly funding professional sporting facilities stimulates local economies.

A study conducted in 2003 by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (which can be viewed at http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_03_104.pdf ) found that athletic facility construction “reduces the wages in three of the four occupational groups studied … and the impact on the full sample of workers is negative.” The occupational groups sampled in this particular study were “sports related occupations,” “hotel employees,” “food service employees” and “retail employees.”

Another study, conducted by the University of Dayton in Ohio ( http://www.sba.udayton.edu/research/working_papers/wp6.pdf ), concluded that “the cause of economic efficiency would best be served by a return to the state of affairs that prevailed prior to World War II, with teams building stadiums with their own money.”

A 2001 report by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank (see it at http://www.kc.frb.org/publicat/econrev/PDF/1q01rapp.pdf ) notes that “regardless of method, none of the academic studies has so far been able to find significant economic development benefits sufficient to justify the large public outlays [‘outlays’ means spending].”

“At the last meeting we went on record saying that the CRA will not be offering money for the stadium,” says Commissioner Regalado. “But I don’t think it was a formal vote. I think we [the CRA board] will bring it up at the next meeting for a formal vote.”

The next CRA board meeting is on Monday, Feb. 26, at 5 p.m.

Comments? E-mail ryan@miamisunpost.com.