City of Mesa Promoting the Value of Thin Air for Spring Training

Too often in life, people take for granted those things which surround them on a regular basis. An example would be the air we breathe day after day. While most of us are likely to admit air is important, it would be difficult to find two people who would come to the same conclusion on the specific worth of air. Finally, someone is doing something about establishing the value of thin air.

The City of Mesa has placed a value of over $100 million on the concept of a new spring training facility and they would like the taxpayers of Mesa to fund this idea. Because there is no site for the development and because there is no design for the development, voters this fall are being asked to imagine what $100 million will buy. While they are at it, the voters also need to dream about the value of the adjacent commercial real estate development known as “Wrigleyville West”, because no one knows what that may look like either. Getting behind this project requires a substantial amount of faith in a notion lacking any substance.

Between now and the election, a dollar well spent would be renting the baseball fantasy movie Field of Dreams. Before anything meaningful transpires on the screen, a location for the ball field was chosen. What did the screenwriters know that the Mesa politicians don’t?

What’s Left Behind After New Cubs Stadium Opens?

A concern of City of Mesa taxpayers regarding the proposed new Chicago Cubs spring training complex is the fate of existing facilities which have been used over the past 14 years for same purpose. These developments, Hohokam Stadium and Fitch Park, are located along Center Street near downtown Mesa. Despite some revenue from spring training activities and other uses, the city loses million annually operating the projects.

If the Cubs move on to another location in the near future, Hohokam and Fitch will still exist and will need to be maintained on an ongoing basis. This cost will be in addition to the expense of operating and maintaining the new practice fields. City officials have stated their intention to offer the abandoned facilities as the spring training home for another Major League Baseball team. While at first glance this sounds like a viable solution, keep in mind the mayor of Mesa recently said the city felt it would take $30 to $40 million to bring the existing parks up to modern standards to meet the Cubs needs. Would another team expect less? Probably not.

Authorizing the building of a new spring training home for the Cubs today exposes Mesa taxpayers to huge additional expenditures down the road.

Keep the Cubs Campaign to Kickoff Soon

The Chicago Cubs have announced plans to blanket the City of Mesa area with a campaign to win support for ballot Proposition 420. On November 2, voters will be asked to approve spending money for a new spring training facility to be used by the Cubs. While wording of the proposition asks voters to support spending in excess of $1.5 million on a Cactus League sports complex, the actual cost of the development is likely to be 100 times the number mentioned on the ballot.

This effort, to be known as Keep the Cubs, should kick off in about a week with meetings taking place with various civic groups and the introduction of a website at www.keepthecubs.com. Hopefully, there will be some actual data available that would support spending a huge sum of money in support of a private enterprise at the same time the local economy is in the tank.

Public Money – Secret Negotiations

While the City of Mesa works hard to convince voters that the spending of well over $100 million on the proposed new Chicago Cubs spring training facility is a good investment, precious little information has been made public regarding the details of this arrangement between the city and the baseball team. Officially, there is no location for this project, there is no design for this project, there is no binding agreement delineating responsibilities of the parties and there is, in short, really nothing definitive about this venture. With a proposition measure already approved for the fall election, it seems voters will be asked to trust the judgment of their elected officials on the matter. Negotiations continue – in secret – between the parties.

Meanwhile, some concern has been expressed about the welfare of some other city programs. Beyond the elimination of hundreds of employment positions over the last couple of years, the city has recently decided to underfund employee retirement benefit funds. By coincidence, the sum of this underfunding over the past two years was somewhat over $100 million. Of course, this does substantiate the official city position that money is available to develop the spring training facility; it is just a matter of prioritizing where the available funds should be spent. This came about, no doubt, with the consent of the retirees involved.

The Spring Training Shopping Experience

There have been a number of reasons cited for the Chicago Cubs desire to relocate from their existing spring training facilities in the City of Mesa. Among these is the stated intention of the Cubs organization to create a commercial real estate development to be known as “Wrigleyville West” adjacent to the new stadium complex. There is insufficient land available in the immediate vicinity of Hohokam Stadium to build this type of improvement.

Both the City of Mesa and the Cubs hope that Wrigleyville West will generate a substantial amount of year-round activity near the new spring training complex. Of course, what they wish to avoid is the wasteland-like appearance surrounding some other recently completed Cactus League stadiums. Which of these scenarios plays out in the proximity of the new Cubs facility is greatly dependent on the attributes of the specific location where the project is constructed.

Of those sites which currently seem to be in contention for the spring training project, the location least likely to support an adjacent commercial development would be the location near downtown Mesa at University Drive and Mesa Drive. The area with the best chance of sustaining a viable Wrigleyville West is the Waveyard site near the intersection of the Loop 10 and Loop 202 Freeways.

Cubs Boosters Still Pushing Red Mountain Ranch for Spring Training Site

Despite the fact that the mayor of the City of Mesa says there is no particular site favored for the proposed Chicago Cubs spring training project, various groups keep promoting the intersection of Thomas Road and Recker Road as a convenient location for such a development. Continuing a trend which began in January, the latest effort was comprised of an E-mail entitled “CHICAGO CUBS: VOTE YES 420”. This communication was sent to residents of the Red Mountain Ranch community and espoused the convenience of being able to walk to a baseball stadium and the adjacent commercial development dubbed “Wrigleyville West”. The reference to “420” identifies the number of the proposition on this fall’s ballot which asks voters to support city funding for the spring training facility. Under the circumstances, it may be hard to convince nearby residents that the Red Mountain area is not a preferred site for the new stadium and everything else that comes with it.

Mesa Assures Residents City is not Broke

During a recent Town Hall-style meeting, the mayor of the City of Mesa took the time to tell those in attendance that the city was not broke. This was a prelude to a dissertation on the proposed Chicago Cubs spring training facility to be paid for by Mesa. Perhaps someone had previously implied present economic circumstances were placing a strain on municipal resources and spending big money on a sports complex for use by millionaires was not the best use of the limited funds which were available.

While the mayor is correct in his assertion that the city is not broke, there are some disturbing fiscal trends which could cause a reversal of fortune in the future. Over the past several years, the city has missed budgeted revenue projections by a wide margin; last year’s income fell $46 million short of official estimates and the previous year was off the mark by $61 million. Of course, one way to deal with a lack of money is to borrow some. Over the past decade Mesa’s long-term obligations have increased by over $600 million and, in the same time period, per capita municipal debt has more than doubled from $1,300 per resident to over $2,700 per person.

So, in light of the above financial missteps, it is understandable why a number of people question the promised economic benefit which can be expected by investing vast sums of money in a new spring training project.

Time to Review the Fine Print in Cubs Memo of Understanding – Again

One of the key elements in determining the economic viability any sort of real estate development is the initial cost of the project. This, in turn, is weighed against the expected return on this investment. In the case of the proposed Chicago Cubs spring training facility, the number repeatedly mentioned in the press as the maximum public investment is $84 million. While the $84 million figure is mentioned in the Memorandum of Understanding signed back in January by the City of Mesa and the Cubs, it does not represent the entire public investment.

Disregarding any expenses for operating cost or future improvements, the initial cost of the project is not capped at $84 million. The $84 million number is referred to in the memo as the “Financing Amount”. Specifically, as enumerated in Paragraph 2.1, subsections (a) through (l), there are additional costs, over and above the $84 million, which must be paid by the city. The most significant of these costs are all infrastructure related to the facilities and the primary stadium parking. To give these elements some perspective, the City of Glendale spent $37 million on infrastructure costs related to the recently completed White Sox and Dodgers Stadium. Now, the cost has risen to $120 million or so. Since the city does not have the money lying around, add the cost of financing for 25 or 30 years and you quickly have a $200 million development.

Cubs and Mesa Narrow Spring Training Site Search - Sort Of

After seven months of effort, the City of Mesa and the Chicago Cubs have yet to name a specific location for the proposed new spring training facility to be constructed somewhere in Mesa. The latest word from city officials is that there are three potential sites under consideration. According to the mayor, this is one more than four months ago, but several less than last month. In March, both the Cubs and city officials said they expected a site to be named by the end that month.

The front-running locations identified by the mayor on July 30, included the Riverview area near where the yet-to-be-started Waveyard project was to be developed, an area close to downtown Mesa and one remaining site in northeast Mesa. Apparently, another area previously considered to be on a short list was near the Gateway Airport. This site has now been rejected. Some skeptics believe the delay involved in the decision-making process is merely a ruse to deflect attention away from the Cubs preferred site near Red Mountain Ranch at Thomas and Recker Roads.