We Already Had Most Of The Funds To Renovate Roberts Stadium

We're broke. That's the general consensus around town. What isn't a general consensus around town is how we got into a such a position. If you ask our city leaders, they will blame rising costs across all departments, the economy in general, and commitments to a wide variety of projects. While I don't doubt that those three problems are factors in our budget woes, I would like to suggest another problem- government incompetence and mismanagement.

As of right now, we're looking at needing to make the following renovations to Roberts Stadium...

* Raising the floor- Initial Estimate: $400,000-$500,000
* Fixing the roof over the newly added concourses- Initial Estimate: $50,000-$100,000
* Demolishing the precast concrete sections above street level- Initial Estimate: $85,000

With those three renovations, we are looking at needing $535,000-$685,000 to scale Roberts Stadium down to a mid-sized arena. Yes, there will probably be miscellaneous expenses such as widening the tunnel, constructing an entrance for vehicles to enter the main level concourse, and minor repairs to the HVAC and Central Plant systems such as a part here and there. This also doesn't include funds for turning the back lot into a green space. But for the time being, these are the only identified renovations and they will probably be the most expensive ones which gives us a good ballpark figure for what we are dealing with.

It is important to understand that these repairs will pay for themselves many times over. Depending on how we coordinate Roberts Stadium with the Ford Center, we are looking at well over 200 events a year. If the GLVC Tournament was brought back to Roberts Stadium, which is the correct decision as the Icemen need that Saturday to increase their attendance, its economic impact alone would pay for most of Roberts Stadium's annual expenses and maintenance (The teams alone bring $100,000 before fans are even considered).

Couple the GLVC Tournament with a NBDL team, USI preseason tournament games, mid-sized concerts, BMX tournaments, expo events, indoor football games, high school basketball tournaments, lacrosse games, in-line skating games, indoor soccer games, and anything else SMG or Venuworks can bring in and the revenue greatly outweighs the costs. Therefore, this investment is one that our city must make.

Given all of that, our city will now need to find funds to undertake these renovations. As with everything else involving Roberts Stadium, I believe that this step can be a simple one if our city leaders are willing to explore the proper sources of funding such as...

*Selling Naming Rights To The Gates- 5/3rd just agreed to pay $3.3 million for the Aces practice facility. At Roberts, they will get an entire gate to set up their marketing which will reach vastly more people than the practice facility. We have four gates and two main concourses to sell naming rights to. If we market these correctly, we will get the majority of our financing with this option.

*Sell The Old Aces Court- They did this in 1984 and it netted over $24,000. We need to cut the old court up into 1,600 pieces and sell them for $20 each. That would give us $32,000 which is roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of our roof expense.

*Sell The Seats That Will Be Removed- As of right now, we're looking at removing 5,000 to 6,000 seats inside Roberts Stadium during renovations. Most followers of this blog know that I am a strong supporter in the idea of giving these seats to the ECVB for their ball fields project instead of selling them on the open market. Either way, if we sell each seat for $30, we would net $150,000-$180,000. When David Dunn presented his plan for the ball fields, he estimated that it would cost $1.56 million for concession stands and bleachers. With these seats, the ECVB would save on construction costs and we would have roughly 1/3rd-1/4th of the funding needed to renovate Roberts Stadium.

There are many other fundraising options that I talked about earlier as well...

http://saverobertsstadium.blogspot.com/2011/07/lets-make-funding-personal.html

Although I believe there are plenty of avenues to explore to find funds to renovate Roberts Stadium, I do want to point out that if our government leaders would have put their faith in Roberts Stadium from day 1 (like I have) we wouldn't even be in this position. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the money we wasted on exploring the idea of building the ball fields on the lot which would have covered the vast majority of the needed renovations to Roberts Stadium.

In the very beginning, when the city/county wasn't even looking at intruding into the Roberts Stadium lot, they spent several hundred thousands of dollars...

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/jan/30/no-headline---30b01wesselman/

"At the request of the Convention & Visitors Bureau earlier this month, the Vanderburgh County Council approved spending $425,000 in innkeepers tax revenue to hire an architect to design the project, which was recommended by a consultant hired to study Evansville's sports facilities."

$425,000 would have covered...

- The vast majority of the expense to raise the floor

or

- Renovating Roberts Stadium's roof and demolishing the precast sections above street level twice

or

- Roughly 2/3rds of the costs for the three main renovations needed to scale Roberts Stadium down to a mid-sized arena.

If we couple the $425,000 with the $200,000 that Mayor Weinzapfel placed in this year's budget for Roberts Stadium, we would already have just about all of the funding needed to renovate the three main areas of Roberts Stadium.

Even worse is the fact that this estimate does not include...

1. The settlement money to former ECVB Director Marilee Fowler who wasn't suppose to announce that the ball fields were heading to Wesselman Park and eventually Roberts Stadium as well. These legal fees have been estimated to have been as high as $100,000

http://city-countyobserver.com/2011/02/11/is-it-true-part-2-february-11-2011-the-cost-of-bad-public-policy/

2. The additional sunk costs incurred on the ball fields project even though it has currently been cancelled. I didn't include these costs because they have not been accounted for just yet and will continue to be billed to our city/county/ECVB over the next few years until a final decision is made on the location of the ball fields.

3. The $3,000 bill the previous ECVB ran up at Biaggi's...

http://www.examiner.com/campaign-ads-in-evansville/evansville-convention-and-visitors-bureau-spends-over-3000-on-christmas-party-photo

4. The chartered flights the ECVB took to inspect other ball field projects...

http://city-countyobserver.com/2011/01/05/ecvb-board-spent-10205-on-5-christmas-feasts-charter-flight-to-inspect-ballfields-was-2542-90-for-5-travellers/

If we would have spent our money wisely, we would already have the funding we need to renovate Roberts Stadium AND we would already have the seats needed to construct our 8 ball fields at a location that actually has baseball history around it. The only reason why we don't is because our city leaders were unwilling to stop the ECVB or step back and give Roberts Stadium a moments thought.

I can honestly look any city leader in the eye and tell them that a renovated Roberts Stadium and a ball fields complex at Kleymeyer Park would reap millions upon millions of more economic revenue than the way their plan which consisted of nothing more than a bunch of expenses for a project that never happened and never made any sense at Wesselman Park.

So, if city hall is going to tell us that they don't have any funds for Roberts Stadium, they must also be willing to take the blame for blowing the funds on frivolous things like a failed ball fields proposal that the public never really got to have any say in. They also must be willing to take the blame for not investigating funding leads like the three above.

We can renovate Roberts Stadium, we can identify the proper funding, and we can put heads in beds by the thousands. All we need is for our local government to be willing to SAVE ROBERTS STADIUM!