You’re welcome! It’s always a pleasure to offer input. For instance, the MLB to Raleigh site still has a proposed stadium plan that literally paints over land owned by two thriving churches, one of them predominantly African-American and the other one predominantly Hispanic, and proposes bulldozing the churches and turning the land into … tailgating space. There is absolutely zero possibility that a stadium will ever be built here, but this remains an utterly terrible idea. If a baseball stadium is ever built, building it alongside I-40 between Raleigh and Durham would be the only sensible plan, and the Lenovo Center land would be the logical first choice. It was the right idea in 2019, it’s the right idea now, and I’m glad to see that MLB to Raleigh now agrees and has finally come around and formally endorsed this idea.
Yes, this accurately restates the problem! MLB to Raleigh is not a source of trustworthy information about other potential expansion candidates, which makes it a bad source of information about MLB expansion in general. And it is, of course, quite easy to present objectively true facts in a manner that gives an incorrect overall impression because the data is cherry-picked or lacks context.
Holy Moses! With all of your nitpicking, as someone who is neutral on this topic, I would love to see MLB drop a team in Raleigh, and even have everything paid for by the taxpayers. Good grief!
I can’t believe the Portland Diamond Project doesn’t have news about MLB to Raleigh on their website! What are they doing? Someone should let them know they aren’t a good source of MLB expansion news!
Thanks. Yeah, maybe I came out a little hard today. That’s fair. But the idea that stadium planners would just help themselves to land owned by two churches has really, really stuck in my craw for six years. I think it’s appallingly distasteful, and I still really don’t understand why anyone would do that in the first place.
I mean, yes, this is true. The Portland Diamond Project website is also not a place to get objective analysis about MLB expansion. Yes, MLB to Raleigh is only doing the same thing that similar projects in other cities are doing, and I think it’s quite natural and fine that all of these projects have their own marketing arms. But all of them are just spin and hype and BS.
I have a often-stated agenda against public funding for stadiums. When I keep pointing out that any stadium, if built, would without a doubt be built next to an exit on I-40, it’s honestly not an aesthetic preference of mine. It’s really not. I’m just acknowledging the reality that the plan wouldn’t be feasible any other way.
I’m sorry, but no, no one on this forum should be advocating for a stadium anywhere but DTS. No churches need to be demolished, it’s a blank slate. Not sure what you or I are missing here. DTS is off of I-40 anyway.
The safe choice is somewhere between Raleigh/Durham or Lenovo/Blue Ridge area, obviously. Thats why this group has to advocate for DTS.
About Portland’s gondola…yeah that’s why I laughed at people who said it’s a foolish idea here. It works great in Portland. Not a gimmick and already exists. The gondola idea for Raleigh is not far-fetched. We should talk about it like it’s viable, not like a “stretch goal.”
Please elaborate on the churches. There is so much space in DTS I don’t understand the church piece at all. They don’t need to tear down any churches. If their proposal did include land owned by churches, are we positive they didn’t partner with them first to talk about options? Lots of churches are selling land to generate revenue, it’s happening everywhere. Did we ask if they talked or are we assuming MLB Raleigh disregarded them completely? I’m pretty lost on this honestly.
Plenty of projects use church land, usually by helping them relocate to a nearby spot, which shouldn’t be hard to find in South Park. This is assuming a wild level of bad faith.
My brother, you’ve allowed a purely hypothetical and fan-made stadium proposal stick in your craw for six entire years? Just ignore it lmao, it’s literally not a real proposal.
Yeah, no offense to the fine folks at MLB Raleigh who are doing the lord’s work, but my sense is that they are not down in the weeds on the real estate portion of this equation. Which is fine.
As someone that regularly assumes that everyone else has all the information I do, I get it. Now let’s all go back to having a normal one online
Originally there were four proposed stadium sites on the MLB to Raleigh website. Two have already been deleted, and a “PNC District Plan” has been added. The one that envisioned appropriating the church land is the “Old Cargill Mill” proposal. And, I mean, it’s a terrible plan for a lot of other reasons, too. It envisions putting a stadium district across the street from low-density residential housing. There are lots of problems that arise when you have zero interest in the local community’s input. (In fairness, several people have now made the valid point that this is a pure fantasy-land proposal from a couple of random fans that is never happening, and I shouldn’t let it bother me, and this is probably fair and wise.) And, yes, I promise you there was no discussion with the churches or other neighbors about their thoughts on this plan, much less partnering. It was just a couple of dudes shooting off ideas.
The group’s thoughts on a stadium at Downtown South are here. There’s no map, oddly, but it’s different land without the same issues. I see some tall hurdles here, too, that could stymie any stadium plans if they ever even got off the ground, but I’ll gladly concede that Downtown South is at least a better idea than any of the other three original ideas.
There probably have been tall hurdles associated with any US stadium ever built on any site in the entire history of stadium construction…but stadiums do get built sometimes.
Putting MLB Raleigh aside, we also have a billionaire with a team of smart, accomplished people and a supportive government that are all actively collaborating on finding a viable site plan. No guarantees, but that’s pretty good at this juncture.
Not just sometimes. Literally every single stadium goes through some period of, “NO, NOT THERE,” for various reasons. Ruining nature, too close to my neighborhood, there’s a historic building there, etc.
No proposal is going to be perfect. The final location and design definitely won’t be. There’s always going to be pushback in some form or fashion. Every negative aspect of a plan brought up by @daviddonovan or others is 100% negotiable. Stadiums still get built despite those and the pros will always be weighed against the cons by those that are actually making the decisions.
Yeah, yeah, anytime anyone tries to inject the slightest bit of realism here, the pushback is always, “Sometimes some things do get built, so that proves that our thing will obviously get built, too!” But a lot of projects do get killed (see: A’s, Oakland [formerly]; and Rays, Tampa), and most teams take the path of least resistance. In another thread you mentioned the Chase Center as an example of impossible things sometimes coming to fruition, and it was such an odd example because 1) the Chase Center was actually a Plan B that the team turned to after Plan A, which was by the piers, literally got killed due to community opposition saying no not there, and 2) the Chase Center wasn’t a particularly challenging build. It went from conception to groundbreaking in less then three years, which is quite fast. And the Chase Center was also privately financed. If a project requires public money, that gives nimbys a ton of leverage because the politicians have to approve the financing and so they have a lot more cons to weigh. But if a project only needs a rezoning or whatever, the nimbys have a lot less leverage.
There is a reason that every MLB stadium except for Wrigley is near a major freeway, and why a lot of current stadiums were built in the parking lot of the old stadium, or in the suburbs.
I rarely talk in absolutes here. I think Raleigh is still an underdog to get an MLB team, but I’ve never once said that can’t or won’t, and the odds are higher now than they were six years ago. And if a team does come here, I think it’ll do just fine financially. There are a lot of markets that could support a team, and the Triangle is one of them. But here are my two predictions I will make in ironclad terms: If an MLB stadium is built, it will absolutely be built next to an exit on the highway, and it will absolutely be massively subsidized by taxpayers. If someday Dundon builds a bespoke baseball stadium on the St. Aug’s land or whatever, everyone has my permission to dogpile about how wrong I was. Seriously, go crazy, folks. But I’m not worried about that happening. A car-centric stadium would be the cheapest, easiest thing to build, and it’s the only model that would be financially profitable. If a team is going to be successful in the Triangle, it’ll have to draw fans from all over the Triangle, not just Raleigh, and those fans will all want to get to the games by driving in their cars–not that they’d have any other option, anyway.
The Spring Hill / Centennial East site is about as perfect as it will get. empty land centrally located to population direct highway connection (tweak the interchange to go directly to Centennial Pkwy instead of Lake Wheeler rd) Close enough to downtown. Can spur mixed-use development along this edge of Dix Park close-ish to Western BRT (~15 min walk to Pullen Rd station) Can rail right-of-way be used for gameday trams from downtown and from the south from park-n-rides? Another great use of the gondola from downtown to Dix
Your comment about freeway access is interesting and it compels me to go look at Google maps field locations around the country. Thanks for setting me up for a geeky-fun activity. I love looking at maps!
In any case, I do think that your assertions have believability and clout, and I do imagine that a future field would be built next to a freeway. I mean, just look at DBAP. It’s right next to the Durham Freeway.
As for Raleigh, we have always appreciated that our downtown wasn’t bifurcated by a freeway like other cities were, but a lack of a freeway in this instance does provide a challenge. Now, if we had a robust rail transit system in place, then maybe we wouldn’t have to have a field next to a freeway, but we know that’s a pipe dream vis-a-vis landing an expansion team in the near future.
Given the freeway access requirement, I’d certainly prefer a baseball field accessed from 40 to the south of Downtown rather than adjacent to the stadium/arena complex off of the Wade Ext.
empty land
close-ish to Western BRT (~15 min walk to Pullen Rd station)
Can rail right-of-way be used for gameday trams from downtown and from the south from park-n-rides?
Another great use of the gondola from downtown to Dix