2010 Rowdies Stadium News Part 3

The lawyer that the Rowdies owners were using for the rezoning indicated (on the night of the County board hearing) that the Rowdies still had the option to build at the Tomato Patch location. The "concerned citizens" forced the Rowdies to withdraw their proposal on that night, but they only had the ability to make noise in the first place because the Rowdies made the mistake of going to the County board for a rezoning and an allowance to use off site parking at the nearby Target store (IIRC).

It breaks down into two issues: a small chunk of land not properly zoned for a stadium, which they don't need to use to actually build a stadium on, so it's not really an issue if they redesign the project not to include it.

The other issue is parking. Current regulations from the County insist on one parking space for every three seats. Seems a bit high, but whatever. They can go up to 9,999 seats without rezoning, provided they have 3,333 parking spots. (provided the parking is within 2,000 feet of the stadium - again, IIRC, so don't quote me on that)

Plenty of land around the Tomato Patch spot could be bought for parking, that area is a dump. In articles published around the time of the rezoning hearing, locals who owned land neighboring the Tomato Patch said they had not been approached by anyone to buy their land. So the owners did not consider this option before the hearing; they should have, and avoided the county hearing entirely.

This is just my uninformed opinion, but from what I have read the county hearing was hardly the final word on the matter. If the Rowdies can build on the Tomato Patch site within existing zoning and within existing county regulations for public events (ie with enough parking) then they don't need to go to a county board hearing and the NIMBYs and blue hairs will not be able to stop them.

 

NIMBYs who want to live within a metropolitan cityscape of nearly 3 million people, enjoying all the advantages which that has to offer, kill me when they at the same time resist further development and betterment of said metropolis.

Please, go away NIMBYs. I hear there is a shit ton of empty land somewhere out west being practically given away.

hint hint hint

 

Based on the photos I saw these were elderly NIMBYs - they paid off their mortgages twenty or thirty years ago when they were living out in the suburbs. Now they want the rest of the world to stop changing so that they can pretend that it is still 1980.

Anyone curious about this should look at the Tomato Patch location off West Waters Avenue and Benjamin Road on Google maps/satellite, and then tour the location via Google street view.

The area is a mixed agricultural/industrial area with lots of trailer homes and junk, untended land with weeds, etc. It's a dump.

The NIMBYs are over half a mile to the west, across a busy toll highway and split in the middle by yet another busy highway, and underneath an airport flight path (in fact, if you go to Google maps right now and look at the satellite pictures, you can see an actual commercial jet airliner coming in for a landing just to the south and east of the Tomato Patch location, flying parallel to Benjamin Road!). A little noise at a SSS would hardly carry half a mile or more over that kind of background noise. Traffic fears also were over-hyped; increased traffic would have been during idle periods on nights and weekends and over large multi-lane highways well equipped to handle the traffic during off-peak hours.

The idea that this SSS was going to increase noise pollution and traffic to any noticeable degree is rather silly, yet facts don't matter when the local "community activists" bus in large numbers of blue hairs to shout the proposal down. No reasonable offers to deal with their objections were accepted; noise and traffic fears were pretexts. Stop the world from changing was the clear message.

Anyway we'll see what happens. I kind of fell in love with the site via Google maps/satellite but a more centrally located downtown location, if feasible, would be even better. If the Tom McEwen quote has any basis in reality, and it may not, but if it does, that would be even better, ie:

"Among the bigger, better news is the assurance that the Rays are bent on staying among us to build their new home here from the fact that the Rowdies will do the same at the University of Tampa."

And also:

“We are working closely with Hal and Hank Steinbrenner, sons of the Yankee owner, and Felix Lopez, Steinbrenner’s son-in-law. We think the setup will be wonderful and after a couple of seasons, we will move to a new facility to be built near the University of Tampa, in downtown Tampa. This is truly exciting,” said Laxer."

Did they ever retract that Laxer quote, or just pretend it never happened?

This may be something he misheard or just a random possibility that was thrown out there. Although looking at Google maps/satellite I'm a bit baffled what land at the University of Tampa would be suitable; there's no open land anywhere near Pepin Stadium or the University along the river. I would have thought land near RayJay and/or near the airport would be more likely.

I do have to wonder based on this twitpic from the Rowdies, what they might have been talking to the Mayor of Tampa about:

http://twitpic.com/17x2b1

Maybe the County board hearing was a calculated ambush to keep the Rowdies from building a private stadium, instead steering them towards some kind of deal under the umbrella of the Tampa Sports Authority. I'm just cynical enough to believe that's a possibility.

Whatever. Politics is politics. As long as the Rowdies get a viable SSS built I'll be content.

 

If the buzz/rumors for the Rays means anything, there are a couple of sites in downtown Tampa that are being looked at. These could easily become potential Rowdies SSS sites if things work out - the Rowdies need to move more quickly than the Rays do right now.

I could see a deal where the land remains owned by the City of Tampa and gets put under the Tampa Sports Authority, thus saving the Rowdies the cost of purchasing the land or paying property tax on it, while still controlling the SSS. Such a deal could work out well for both the Rowdies and the City: the Rowdies get a SSS location and the City gets the Rowdies to spend money building a SSS and maybe revitalizing a downtown area (or at any rate putting it to good use rather than just being an empty lot).

Anyway it makes for interesting speculation; this is old news for the Rays but makes for interesting Rowdies speculation:

Ha. Tom McEwen keeps calling RayJay "Tampa Stadium". Well I guess we can't blame him. A location near RayJay is certainly a possibility.

The location just north of the St. Pete Times Forum looks well connected to the highway and looks like a lot of empty lots. If the city owns this property it would seem like a natural for some kind of redevelopment.

More on possible Rays stadium sites that could also possibly work for the Rowdies:

I could easily see these sites being rebuffed or delayed by the Rays, and then moving on to the Rowdies. I suspect the Tom McEwen "misquote" of Laxer might have been a hint at this.

All pure, idle speculation on my part.

 

An SSS at the downtown channelside site would be far too awesome to hope for.

One issue I think is that much of the empty space is currently used as parking for events at the hockey arena. So that would have to be addressed.

But short of getting a stadium on the river this is the best we can hope for if you are into urban experiences.

Any SSS in the immediate area, whether it be off Gandy at the Howard Franklin, downtown or near Ray Jay would be fantastic obviously. I'm just biased towards having it "in the city'

 

Perhaps there is more land in the area that can be used for parking? Are there a lot of empty or underused lots in the area?

Yes a downtown location with good highway access would be best.

If the Rowdies are working with the City of Tampa on a downtown location, I have a hunch they might go whole hog and build an MLS-sized SSS. They have to consider they are now in competition with Miami/Ft. Lauderdale if Traffic succeeds in acquiring control of Lockhart and the surrounding baseball practice fields and converts them to soccer. A 20,000 seat SSS might seem too large for USL/NASL but it allows for occasional big crowds (4th of July, etc) to boost average attendance. And it makes eventual "promotion" into MLS more attractive.

If this happens I hope the Rowdies still build on the Tomato Patch location, though. You could put in a large size training facility there and in the surrounding properties. Still plenty of chances to annoy the NIMBYs and blue hairs.

 

Presumably they are thinking of not building on the parking areas but on other lots next to the parking areas.

One issue with that location could cause problems: if you build there you'd have scheduling issues when the NHL and USL/NASL/MLS seasons overlap. Not an insurmountable problem, but you'd have less of an issue building next to RayJay since the NFL only plays on Sundays and so is much easier to schedule around.

 

Well for one they are building a pretty large add on to the parking garage at Channelside.

For another, I'd imagine some sort of parking garage would be part of any deal to have an SSS built downtown. Parking can be solved and there is a shit ton of empty space in the immediate area.

I would never leave Tampa if we got a SSS downtown and any prospect of an MLS team.

 

Irony for me, living in New England. At the rate things are going the Rowdies might have a downtown SSS and be in MLS long before the Revs have a SSS (let alone a downtown SSS which is pretty much out of the question in Boston).

 

I feel bad for Rev's supporters. You all have been pretty loyal fan's for
the majority of MLS's existance. I remember watching Rev's games back
when the league started and you all would draw pretty good crowds. It
seemed like your attendances would be in the 17-20 thousand mark.

I hope that some day,the Rev's will get a SSS close to Boston.

 

Why didn't they change the sign board in the picture of the stadium on the website?

Lotto as the uniform supplier, but the sign still says Reebok. lol

http://fctampabay.com/stadium/info/

 

Damn,law5guy,you've got great eye site. I don't see a Reebok ad.
I see a Pepsi and DHL ad. the rest i can't make out.

 

Budweiser, Nokia too.

 

Still no plans to grass over the baseball diamond?

What they should do is something simular to CommunityAmercia Ballpark, where soccer and baseball share the stadium:

Because of the current soccer presence, the Baseball configuration has taken an unusual step. In most natural grass fields the base lines where baserunners run between bases is dirt. However, CommunityAmerica Ballpark now sports dirt sliding pits just around the three bases, homeplate, and the pitchers mound. This is so grounds crews do not need to install excessive amounts of grass for each Wizards home game.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/CommunityAmericaBallparkPanoramic.jpg

http://www.kansastravel.org/kansascitykansas/09communityamerica5.JPG

 

Great idea, but I'm not sure the Yankees will go for it. We'll have to see what the dirt looks like when the time comes. Should be interesting. Could it be beach soccer in Tampa?

 

Well hopefully this stadium is a temporary stadium....

 

that would be awesome if they could do this and just cover the dirt with grass

 

i know part of the field will be on dirt, but are they going to cover it with grass for the games?

 

don't believe so.

 

They won't be covering it with grass per the Yankees request. There will be clay on the field, probably a little less than a quarter of it. It should still be a decent pitch though.

 

i know its already been said, but they should do what kansas city did and put grass over the dirt except near the bases and cover them with grass on game day

 

And it's already been said that the yankees won't allow that...

 

They can set the field up so that a very small amount of clay is on the playing surface. Hopefully they do that, rather than setting it up so that most of the infield is on the playing surface.

We'll see.

 

but what about the fans, they will be father away and wont that make the field dimensions smaller. If they do keep it the way it is with the field going along the first base line, how do you think the view will be from behind home plate and those areas?