The Lents Urban Renewal Advisory Committee is slated to vote this week on whether the neighborhood should fund a Triple-A baseball stadium in Lents Park with urban renewal money. Until now the debate has circled around directing $42 million from the Lents urban renewal coffers for the stadium, but the city released a proposal (pdf) last night that asks the urban renewal group to approve one of six possible scenarios.
The new scenarios could provide an out for neighbors who are queasy about Lents picking up a $42 million tab for the stadium. Instead, two options dip into the Central City urban renewal fund for part of the public cost. (“TIF” is “tax-increment financing” — the money earned off of an urban renewal area’s low tax rate.)
Six of the fifteen URAC members were on the record several weeks ago against spending $42 million on the stadium and most of the remaining members have said they are undecided on the deal. These cheaper scenarios for Lents could tip some URAC members in favor of the investment.
Option H: Build the fucking thing where it will be useful, in the Rose Quarter. That should be Option A.
Yep. Rose Quarter/Blanchard sites were, and always will be, the best location.
Totally agree with both of you! Don’t build it in Lents park, where it takes away a valuable community resource, and will be completely unable to generate the needed revenue.
Option H – Fuck the Beavers. Bring MLS. Call it good.
I am SICKENED by this callous disregard for what the people of Lents want. This stadium will have a negative impact on not only Lents but surrounding neighborhoods as well. And ruining a great park is just downright evil. Sam: stick your stadium in your own backyard.
Rose Quarter? Better site??!! You have got to be kidding. There’s already a situation there where there’s 20,000 people there all at once- then it’s a ghost town. The Rose Quarter needs to diversify the kind of use that goes on there- not get more of the same. Same goes for Lents Park. On the weekend the place is packed with people using the sports fields and having picnics- but much of the time you can walk through the park and in the 40 acres of park, you can count the people there on one hand!! One time- two people on the running track, one kid at the gazebo drawing on it (grafitti).
If the Lents URA is a success, and I think that it is going to be- the signs are emerging that will be, Lent Park is going to have to become more of an urban park with more of a variety of amenities. The only things to do there other than use the sports facilities are to garden- if you have a community garden plot, and to play on the playground- if you are a kid or have one or two.
The area to the east of the park, between 92nd and the freeway, should eventually be redeveloped into a mixed use, high-density district where there are apartments and condos overlooking the park, offices, shops, markets, coffee shops, and… just all kinds of neighborhood commercial development. The eastern edge of the park should become a living room for people who live, work and shop along this edge of the park. A stadium could fit really well into this kind of development- and with this kind of development, the property values that everyone worries so much about- will skyrocket!!
The people living in a district like this would help bring additional users to the park at times that it’s poorly used now!
A great deal of attention has been paid to the supposedly bad things that a stadium would do to Lents- the media has eaten it up and lots of residents have heard nothing other than the arguments about crime, litter, noise, property values etc. The good things that could come as a result of having a stadium in Lents Park- where a stadium already exists, BTW- really haven’t made the airwaves at all.
The opposition is well organized! The supporters just haven’t been. It’s a shame because this could really be the shot in the arm that Lents needs.