Just How Much Is Roberts Stadium Worth?

(www.latrishajacobs.com)

"Just How Much Is Roberts Stadium Worth?" That has been a question many have wondered about. There have been rumors that a study was commissioned to answer this exact question and came up with $19-$20 million for Roberts Stadium and $5 million for the parking lot.

For the record, I have never seen this study/report so I cannot confirm this rumor to be true. If you have knowledge of this study please send it my way (JordanBaer1@gmail.com). If someone shows me the study/report, I will pass it on to you the viewers of this blog.

In the meantime, we will take a stroll through the Vanderburgh County Assessor's website...

http://www.vanderburghassessor.org/GeneralSearch.aspx

If you look at the interactive map of Evansville, you will see that Roberts Stadium and its parking lot falls on two different parcels. They are 82-06-22-017-034-004-027 & 82-06-22-017-034-003-027.

You can view the details of each parcel here...

http://www.vanderburghassessor.org/Default.aspx?PID=82-06-22-017-034.004-027

http://www.vanderburghassessor.org/Default.aspx?PID=82-06-22-017-034.003-027

You will see that the first parcel, which includes the vast majority of Roberts Stadium and its eastern parking lot, has the following value...

Valuation Record

True Tax Values:

Land:$5,437,200
Improvements: $9,711,200
Total: $15,148,400

You will see that the second parcel, which includes a small chunk of Roberts Stadium, its western parking lot, and Swonder Ice Rink & Hartke Pool, has the following value...

Valuation Record

True Tax Values:

Land:$3,839,800
Improvements: $491,500
Total: $4,331,300

With land values and improvements of both parcels, we get a grand total of $19, 479,700.

(On a side note: Kleymeyer Park is divided into 2 parcels as well. The parcel that would contain our 8 ball fields is worth $8.3 million)

With that being said, it is important to understand several disclaimers here...

1. The second parcel includes both Swonder Ice Rink and Hartke Pool, thus the overall value is lower than the $19 million + figure.

2. If you go to the Vanderburgh County Assessor's website, you will see that this is just a rough estimate. It is not intended to give us a concrete figure that will replace any official appraisals.

So that we can make a fair argument against demolition supporters, I will take the following two steps...

1. Since we do not know what the land value of Roberts Stadium would be with a different structure on it, I will eliminate both land values from the estimate.

2. Since the western parcel contains both Swonder Ice Rink and Hartke Pool, I will eliminate the western parcel entirely from our argument.

After taking these two steps, we are left with the improvements made to the eastern parcel since it was acquired by the Hank Roberts administration in 1954. This figure is $9,711,200.

Although the stadium is worth much more when you factor in the other outside factors, we will use the rough estimate of $9,711,200.

To me, this estimate speaks for itself. Why would we pay $1 million, $1.25 million, $1.5 million, $2 million +, or whatever the current demolition estimate is to demolish a building that is worth nearly $10 million? That doesn't make sense at all.

Of course, demolition supporters will say that they will build a structure worth more on the land. Yet, here we are over a year into the Roberts Stadium debate and they have failed the produce anything that will compete with Roberts Stadium.

First they tried the ball fields. Yet these fields were $18 million to construct. Then they claimed they wanted a park. Yet, we saw first hand during the ball fields debate that maintenance costs would either be the same or higher than maintaining Roberts Stadium (which will be significantly lower if we raise the floor) while the Parks Department has told us they cannot take on any new parks.

If we were to demolish Roberts Stadium, we wouldn't be just demolishing great memories, great history, and great architecture. We would also be demolishing a building worth much more than it would cost to demolish it and construct something new.

It should be very clear to the city of Evansville that we need to save our $9,711,200 stadium!

(financialhack.com)