Still no love for good old Jefferson Street in the Sounds' logo reboot

Well, local baseball fans were predictably unhappy with the Nashville Sounds odd "guitar-orange" choice of new colors for 2015 unis:

So the team owners introduced their reboot in January:

The main problem with the old-new color scheme is that it alluded "to a tourist strip more than a mile away rather than the neighborhood that's in the shadow." The new-new color scheme returns to the previous colors to make the old guard fans happy, but the modifications say nothing about Jeff St:

The team's new identity, brought to life by Brandiose, a San Diego, Calif. company, pays tribute to Nashville as the world-famous "Music City." The centerpiece of the identity is a new guitar pick "N" logo stylized from an f-hole on a guitar. The logos feature Music City style lettering and the platinum silver color is a reference to platinum records associated with the music industry.

Mind you, one of the new uniform options for 2015 is a jersey that literally says, "Music City," along with a cap with the initials "MC." So, there is already an unmistakably straightforward tribute to Music City. The emphasis is still on the tourism enclaves of Nashville without any doff of the cap to the neighbors and proud history of the community in which it sits.

Before council approval, the Dean administration and Sounds brass were dropping Jeff St monikers like "Jimi Hendrix" (who spent time in Jeff St.'s musical culture after his military discharge) with such reverence that one would expect to hear Hendrix's 1969 Woodstock version of the Star-Spangled Banner played once a week in the new stadium.

Is it too much to ask that the red in the latest Sounds uniform version be called, "Hendrix Red House red"? While a Hendrix album did go double-platinum, many artists who have come through Nashville have platinum honors. How about a specific mention for a Jefferson Street performer?

It's not like I expect a color change to "purple haze" or "Jimmy James blue." It's not like I expect the Sounds to flip their new guitar scoreboard into the left-handed position that Hendrix played. It would just be nice if the team owners could give some kind, any kind of nod to Jefferson Street's music history.

We amount to more than "superimposed human silhouettes"

A city planner criticizes a Minneapolis improvement project totaling $50 million due to scant attention it gives to community-based input and democratic process. Given the recent move in the Metro Planning Department away from community-based planning toward a process sponsored by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, he has some relevant things to say to us:

It would appear only a handful of people want this redesign, but it just so happens those handful of people are the one's with enough political connections to get the City to subsidize their want. We are witnessing the continuation of a failed top-down, 'Power Broker' system:

• Strategic political pressure is put on elected officials by influential insiders.
• The city starts the process by hiring the best outside ‘star’ consultant to tell us the things we likely already know.
• Consultant drafts renderings with the best design software money can buy that includes the finest superimposed human silhouettes unpaid interns can draft.
• Minimum public engagement requirements are hit by having people fill out online surveys while business and political insiders, not the countless thousands of daily users or small business owners, continue drive the bureaucratic process forward.

Where projects are funding from State and Federal sources, local input is limited to ensure the process goes as quickly as possible. Local political leaders go along with the process, despite it’s flaws, because it isn’t local money. It is something for nothing and, at that price, something is better than nothing.

In the planning profession, we spend a lot of time talking about the virtues of Jane Jacobs’ works but pay her little respect in practice. Our planning projects, and the leadership that supports them, still hold to modernist planning practices that have been long criticized. Our leadership, despite good intentions, continues to develop projects that accommodate those who do not live in the city all while paying lip-service to public input, diversity, and the little slices of chaos that make places great.

It begs the question: Are we still in the era of top-down modernist planning?

I don't know about Minneapolis, but Nashville is most certainly still in an era of top-down modernist planning, even with Metro being the primary funding source for many projects.

Yesterday, a person responded to my question about what he thought about proposals to change zoning and community character in order that historic buildings in Midtown give way for large hotels and mixed-use complexes, "It's the same developers who always get what they want. It's a done deal." Around the way, First Tennessee Park is being built with practically no community input, vague assurances from designers that it will reflect the local neighborhoods, and many "superimposed human silhouettes".

That's how growth happens in Nashville. Top-down, with power brokers driving planning and zoning. Metro Planning has even given up on community-based planning. Nashville Next, which pays lip-service to community input, has diluted the influence local communities can have on development by emphasizing region-wide coordination of opinions for one comprehensive vision for everyone. The Metro Planning Commission has few neighborhood-friendly, preservation-minded, affordability-touting advocates left to whom to appeal.

We are by no means nearing the end of top-down modernist planning. It chugs along unchecked in Nashville. The bulk of us are not much more than fine shadows to the power brokers.

Are we close enough to Nashville's new ballpark to spot the manure?

Aaron Gordon at Vice Sports engages in a scathing open dialogue with a New York Times article regarding Washington, DC's plan to subsidize a new soccer stadium for its pro-team. While Gordon's entire piece is worthy of your time and attention, I wanted to comment on his observations about the lack of promised economic development that was to come with the opening six years ago of a new professional baseball park.

It seems relevant to North Nashville's close proximity to the new Nashville Sounds' home, First Tennessee Park, which is promised to bring dramatic economic development to the Jefferson Street corridor and the nearby neighborhoods. NYT comments are in bold; Gordon's replies are unbolded:

City leaders say the 20,000-seat stadium will serve as a catalyst for economic development for this area of southwest Washington, the way that Nationals Park, home of the Washington Nationals baseball team, did for its formerly stagnant neighborhood just a few blocks north and east.

Amazingly, the second half of this sentence directly contradicts the first. It takes 12 minutes to walk from Nationals Park to the very tip of Buzzard Point. If Nationals Park—which cost $700 million of taxpayer money—was such a catalyst for economic development, why do they need to build another nine-figure stadium a few blocks away?

Maybe because it didn't revitalize anything.

This has been the case in other Washington neighborhoods after the city voted to approve major new public venues...

Oh, cool! I mean, if it's worked before...

...including the Verizon Center, home to the N.B.A.'s Wizards and the N.H.L.'s Capitals since 1997;...

That was privately funded by then-owner Abe Polin, so not really a public investment! OK, what else?

...and the 2.3 million-square-foot Walter E. Washington Convention Center, completed in 2003, in revitalized Mount Vernon Square.

Wait, seriously?

I lived in the DC area for eight years, including a year and a half in Shaw, which lies just north of Mount Vernon. The above sentiment about Mount Vernon being "revitalized" is the kind of buried horseshit you can only spot if you're close enough to smell it.

Granted, the cost of the DC baseball stadium in taxpayer money was about 10 times what First Tennessee Park is going to cost Nashvillians in taxes. The flip side of that: the logic unfolds that the economic development in DC communities should proportionately be 10 times what was promised for North Nashville neighborhoods.

However, nearby DC neighborhoods got zilch.

Let's focus on the DC developer's comment that local lawmakers may have rigged expectations too high in order to give the ballpark project momentum. Some of us have been shouting that from jump with Nashville's ballpark. But to the point: they rationalized after the damage was done by minimizing the impact of the new ballpark, saying it is "just a very small piece" of development in the neighborhoods. Will First Tennessee ballpark developers and team owners thusly walk back their spin in the coming years? Will they be minimizing the claims Hizzoner kept making in late 2013 about how a new ballpark will create Jeff St. "revival"?

(If they're honest, they'll acknowledge that our neighborhoods were developing and gentrifying well before a new ballpark rose to the level of anything above a nostalgic pipe dream).

Like DC, Nashville has a convention center that is not performing to the results promised. Nashville is getting half the projected hotel nights, and no doubt tourists will compete for parking spaces downtown with minor league baseball fans for parking spaces during the summer (Metro officials said they hope Sounds fans use shrinking downtown parking opportunities). When they aren't competing downtown they will be choking on-street parking in Germantown, Hope Gardens and Salemtown.

The logic of overrated convention centers also applies to subsidized ballparks:

The whole process is basically maneuvered by the business community — banks, hotels, retailers, construction industries, others who will profit while the city loses .... Cities’ corporate movers and shakers long ago figured out how to get their new centers or expansions without the voters having a say.

The rising $70,000,000 Nashville is giving minor league team owner Frank Ward does one thing above all: it minimizes his family's risk and it maximizes inflated income from ticket and merchandising sales. It does so at our expense, even though our own elected officials allowed practically no influence over the deal. In particular it allows Mr. Ward to sell luxury boxes to rich people from Brentwood and Williamson County who would be more likely to snap up real estate investments in our urban core neighborhoods than to patronize and to put their cash in the pockets of the locally owned businesses up and down Jefferson Street.





Again, regular make-ends-meet taxpayers are the losers in this scenario, because economic benefits pad the pocketbooks of the people privately invested in the ballpark and other nearby properties. The latter need no financial assistance. Little will come back to us regardless of whether this particular ballpark bucks the trend and the science that indicate that any economic impact of sports venues is negligible and fabricated.

I am still waiting for someone to stop cheerleading and to begin explaining to me logically how the ballpark makes our lives cumulatively better in Salemtown when the costs are frankly and fearlessly considered.

Nashville Sounds owner finally attends a community meeting for the community funding his new ballpark; for 18 whole minutes.

Just got back from the "community meeting" the Nashville Sounds and the Gobbell Hayes ballpark design team sponsored to announce progress and to show a "3D" video of the "ballpark experience". It barely lasted 15 minutes, and no questions or comments were allowed from the floor at the end. You could fill out a comment card and hope that someone would get back to you later.

What jumped out of the video immediately was that the only places where the "Sulphur Dell" name was in plain sight were in framed archival prints hanging in the luxury suites. It was no where else to be seen inside the ballpark. Project managers told the press in June that "Sulphur Dell" would be "considered" near the batter's eye in centerfield, which makes it sound like fans inside the ballpark would see it (assuming it ever moves from "considered" to "approved"). In the video, the title of the historic site appears outside the park, facing the mixed use development behind the outfield, on the backside of the batter's eye. No one seated in the park will ever be able to read it. The venerable old name deserves a better fate.

The backside of the batter's eye resembles a tombstone

In a significant departure from last October's community meeting, project managers called the entrance facing Jefferson St. "The Grand Entry" and the video narration underscored that the home plate entrance would be the main entrance to First Tennessee Park. Last year, Metro planners conceded that most of the questions they fielded from neighbors of the ballpark concerned the Jackson St. (north) entrance, which would likely encourage driving fans to take up diminishing street parking in Germantown and Salemtown. Their reply to the questions expressed the hope that Downtown parking garages would encourage people to park south of the park and enter from the outfield.

No part of tonight's presentation mentioned the south entry for fans parking Downtown. Instead, the video promoted the north "home plate" entry, making it seem irresistible. Three of the four neighborhood associations in the North Capitol area expressed unqualified support for this development from beginning to end. Germantown, Hope Gardens, and Historic Buena Vista all had chances to try and stipulate parking requirements as part of Erica Gilmore's legislation. Now it is probably too late to do anything. As I wrote last October, team ownership will be interested in protecting the "fan experience", and they will encourage parking wherever they can stuff them in. Tonight's presentation did nothing to change my sense that parking is going to get bad in the neighborhoods on event nights at First Tennessee Park.

Now that the Nashville Sounds have finally showed up to a community meeting, I want to go back over the quality-of-life checklist I came up with last September on questions that deserve to be answered for the sake of our community. Did the Sounds offer anything new?

1. "Complete Streets" and parking?

The Sounds presentation included nothing with respect to street planning that encourages walking and biking as much as automobile traffic. The emphasis on the "grand entry" indicates that the Sounds do not plan to offer solutions for their neighbors to relieve a choked parking situation. A project manager said that the greenway (which replaces a state public greenway) would be contained in the ballpark. So, is that one less greenway for pedestrians to use on days games won't be played? Is it just me or does the new greenway resemble the standard apartment complex courtyard?


2. The North Nashville Community Plan?

The design team at least made an effort last October to discuss the integration of the ballpark into the Germantown neighborhood. Nothing was said this time about the North Nashville neighborhoods. So, why should they care about the community plan? The Sounds have been given an empty canvas as well as Karl Dean's blank checks. They have license to do as they please.


3. Flood mitigation and neighborhood impact?


I heard no mention of the impact of catastrophic flood water displacement in the future caused by flood resistant mixed-use built on historic flood plain. This is bad news for those of us who were either flooded or had near misses in May 2010.


4. Mass transit strategy?

Unlike in October, Gobbell Hayes project managers did not discuss any mass transit arrangement with Metro. Without public pressure on elected officials, why would they?


5. Jobs strategy?


I could not tell from tonight's meeting whether the Sounds plan to hire anyone outside of seasonal ushers to show people to their luxury boxes to enjoy archival prints of working-class Sulphur Dell.


6. Youth programs and service opportunities?

Do the Sounds care about North Nashville's youth? I could not tell from this meeting.

To call tonight's meeting a "community meeting" was a stretch. Everything that happened could have been watched on YouTube. There was no need to create the slightest impression that community concerns and feedback were important to the design team or to Sounds ownership.

UPDATE: I was interested to see a news piece earlier this week on the challenges of finding reliable parking downtown. MDHA has a parking garage in the works to try to help relieve the strain. The article becomes relevant to First Tennessee Park with this comment:

“Some things are so obvious that you don’t need to do an analysis or science project. If you want to find out why we’re doing this, go downtown at 8 tonight and try finding a place to park,” said MDHA Executive Director Jim Harbison.

Remember that last fall, Metro planners and project designers working on the ballpark proposal told us that that they believed downtown parking could accommodate crushes of fans attending night games. The director of the Metro agency brokering deals for parking garages does not seem to agree. Think about where ball game traffic that won't fit downtown is most likely to go.

North Gulch gets HCA. West End now has Karl's Bad Cavern

Not too long ago the Hope Gardens neighborhood association went ballistic when Mayor Karl Dean's Music City Center project sent the Greyhound bus terminal packing to an old car dealership in the North Gulch (south of Hope Gardens). In the beginning it was not clear whether the move would be permanent (it eventually turned out not to be) so zealots came out of the woodwork criticizing CM Erica Gilmore for failing to raise more of a stink over the Mayor's plan. One of these critics, who would go on to be a "co-founder" of Friends of Sulphur Dell confided to me in 2010 that he was among of group of people looking for a challenger to run against Ms. Gilmore in 2011 (she won re-election easily).

These same people seemed very quiet to me when in 2011 the North Gulch area was considered as a potential minor league ballpark site, along with Sulphur Dell and the East Bank. Hope Gardens went all in on Sulphur Dell, even though it was not apparent that the North Gulch was any less advantageous, any less walkable for them. In retrospect, I believe it was because the Mayor had already signaled his plans for baseball to return to the Dell, although I see that it is now for much less than historical reasons.

Jump to today where we learn, on the heels of approval of Sulphur Dell as the ballpark site, the latest plan that the North Gulch is going to be used to save the HCA, whose West End Summit plan for two towers and a hotel seemed to have sunk below the surface of the water gathering once again at the bottom of a Midtown crater. The timing of these announcements is looking domino-like: the Sulphur Dell news itself came on the heels of the Mayor's announcement that the Riverfront would be used for something other than a ballpark. This seems to have "grand design" written all over it. However, I wonder how the folk in Hope Gardens are feeling about the new North Gulch plan. I assume that they are relieved that it is not the Greyhound bus terminal they once worried about being stuck with.

Karl's Bad Cavern (formerly the West End Summit site)

And then, there is Midtown. Back in 2012, Karl Dean embraced the West End Summit as if it were his own child:

Slated at an astounding $900,000 million, the project is one of the largest commercial developments in the area's history and is expected to double its current workforce of 1000 within five years, making it also one of the largest economic development projects in the area.

"HCA could have gone out of state for these headquarters but instead chose to grow jobs here in Nashville," said Mayor Karl Dean at an interview. "This project speaks volumes about the vitality of our West End corridor, the talent of our workforce and the vibrancy of our city."

The Mayor's Office issued a statement yesterday that said nothing of what he now thinks of the "vitality of the West End corridor", and it frankly sounds like a relieved, "Whew!"

"We appreciate that HCA is committed to keeping this $200 million investment, the 2,000 jobs and these two headquarters in Davidson County .... HCA has been a great partner throughout this process, and we look forward to working with them as they move forward."

But you can bet that the move of this troubled project to the Gulch (not to mention building an amphitheater for Martha Ingram on the Riverfront) likely had a lot to do with the ballpark ending up at Sulphur Dell. Even with a cavern still sitting on West End, our Mayor is an acknowledged real estate maximizer.

My post-game wrap on the Sulphur Dell second reading

Emotions were certainly running high at last night's Metro Council public hearing on the Mayor's deal cut with the state and two developers, including the wealthy owner of the Nashville Sounds. If you had asked me beforehand where I thought the emotional outpouring would have come I would have bet my entire concession-stand outlay--including my beer money--that it would have been from the gallery, not from the floor of the council itself.

But the fireworks that have gone off during some public hearings--like those that ignited during the debate over the state fairgrounds plan a few years ago--never appeared from the gallery. Most of those who spoke on the question spoke in favor of the ballpark, but most of those seemed to be business interests that the Mayor's Office would have encouraged to come out. Only two association representatives (Buena Vista and Hope Gardens) from the affected neighborhoods spoke in favor. I did not see anyone from either Germantown or Salemtown associations at the podium.

CM Jerry Maynard previously characterized supporters of Sulphur Dell as a movement, which sounds dramatically populist. But where were they all on the most important night that citizens could theoretically have influence in speaking out? The booster group Friends of Sulphur Dell seems more like a gaggle of Facebook friends linking news stories than it does a movement organized for social change, but I was shocked that they did not pack the gallery with their red shirts. I saw a couple of rows of them toward the back, but even fewer at the podium. I kept waiting for dozens of them to start streaming in through the council doors from the mezzanine after Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors invited them to speak, but they never showed.

I fully expected that those speaking against the ballpark bill would be disorganized and ragtag, and not because people did not have questions about the development. Few showed up to speak against the ballpark. My expectations were already low because Mayor Karl Dean strategically pulled off a coup. For years he downplayed his support of Sulphur Dell, and he deked a couple of reporters, who wrote serious stories on Friends of Sulphur Dell. He kept his powder dry for the big push against the community planning process by announcing the ballpark plan with Thanksgiving approaching and demanding that his council stewards shrink the approval process. The genius of this was that any organized opposition, like that he faced on the Fairgrounds, had no chance to get on its feet. It was a brilliant tactical move that assured that anyone with questions or criticism would be picked off base before they had a chance to steal the deal. Opponents never stood a chance.

Red-shirt October

But the timeline and the relative obscurity of the process also may have kept authentic proponents at home, if there are really a large number of proponents out there. I do not believe there are. I'm still convinced that the "movement" under the Sulphur Dell bill is more astroturf than grassroots, and the fact that the red shirts did not show up en mass seems a huge blow to any pretension that the ballpark is a popular cause right now. I understand why run-of-the-mill supporters might not have known about the public hearing in time to respond, but when the red-shirts did not show up in droves it represented a late inning whiff as some council members at least needed the cover of community support even though the Mayor does not.

So, the public hearing portion was not nearly as momentous as it could have been for the Sulphur Dell bill. The real fireworks, the raw emotion was expressed by bill supporters who did not seem convinced during most of the post-hearing debate that they had the votes to pass the Mayor's plan. In fact they seemed desperate in lashing out and lecturing other council members about how they should vote on a concept, a proposition that they treated as fait accompli.

The first CM to make an appeal to emotion was Ronnie Steine, who characterized any legislative regulation of mixed-use ballpark development as a betrayal of trust and a "slap at integrity" (I tend to take Steine's habitual moralistic lectures to the council with a grain of salt given that he was caught stealing and lying in 2002 while Vice Mayor). Apparently, the CM did not get the memo that this is a dispassionate business agreement between competing interests. Some of those interests are the affected communities themselves who do not enjoy the privilege of sitting at the negotiating table when the Mayor, the State, the Sounds, and the developers meet. We rely on the council to represent us. Apparently, CM Steine would rather represent the Nashville Sounds, whom he also seemed to defend as having the right to cash in on past philanthropy in Nashville by getting a ballpark from Metro at minimal risk. Maybe charity is not its own reward after all.

There was also melodramatic CM Jerry Maynard, who claimed not to be resorting to hyperbole when he resorted to hyperbole: any attempt to regulate or otherwise mitigate the risk of a massive transfer of public wealth to private developers would "kill the deal" for a new ballpark. Not necessarily known for keeping a poker face or staying stoic in tense situations, CM Maynard not only appealed to fear and panic, but he practically tipped developers to our signs. Much of baseball is built on deception. CM Maynard showed no grasp of that fact. We rely on CMs to stand up for us, to represent us in these negotiating process. He totally abdicated to developers, who had to be very pleased with his frantic performance. What is worse, he insinuated that the role of the council is simply to rubber stamp the Mayor's decisions without any recourse to the community's informed consent. Why did we elect him if he is simply going to be a bat boy for the Mayor's Office?

CM Erica Gilmore seemed visibly shaken by finance questions on the council, and she lashed out at those who loved baseball, but who questioned the terms of the development outside the ballpark. She called their love of baseball "a strange kind of love". Oddly enough not a week ago at the community meeting CM Gilmore organized, I listened to Rich Riebeling say that the question of a ballpark should be kept separate from the question of ownership's stake in the development outside the ballpark. But last night she lumped baseball with everything else in the plan. And after losing her composure, CM Gilmore said that she had never brought up fiduciary responsibility or questioned the use of taxpayer money on past projects. Is that supposed to be a badge of honor or a moment of candor where she let slip that service on the council is more about trading favors and abdicating oversight of our resources than it is representing constituents?

One of the most effective agents in major league baseball is Scott Boras. He plays the long game, getting the most return for the players he represents against baseball owners who are wealthy enough to pay just about anything to anyone. The citizens of Nashville needed a few Scott Borases on the council to represent us in this decision. We needed CMs who would stick negotiations out, call ownership and mayoral bluffs, test how far to go in order to get the best finance deal from the Sounds (whose decisions at this point are down to Sulphur Dell and nothing else short of packing up and finding another city waiting around to hand them a ballpark). These CMs did not serve us well by gushing about how the Sounds are like loved vital family members we could not lose.

That is no way to do business. And it's not good baseball.

None of these council supporters of the Mayor's plan put forth any effort to be a Boras-style negotiator for us. They impulsively bashed those who did not simply go along and they ushered developers to a sense of relief that they would dominate this deal. And this deal, which only requires one more council reading, is utter domination without any protections for the community.

Here is the video from yesterday's entire council business meeting (public hearing on the Phillips-Jackson/ballpark bill starts after 41:00):

Sulphur Dell may be the dream, but economic development is an illusion

There is consensus between the professional researchers who study pro sports venues and economic development: there is no proven connection between the two. The pros acknowledge the facts. The costs of publicly subsidized stadiums usually offset or counteract any benefits. Studies show no evidence of positive effects when comparing metro areas with pro sports teams to those without teams. There is no connection to greater employment. Likewise, there is no observable link to increases in income levels. In some cases the value of real estate in public parks rises faster than that under stadiums.

So, support a new ballpark if you want one, but please do not spread the malarky that sports venues are economic boons to the cities that subsidize them.

Usually, when someone tells you that investing public dollars in building a ballpark for a pro team constitutes a "huge" benefit because they create economic development and private investment, they cannot back up those claims with independent data from reliable research. They will spout potentialities incessantly to a beguiled and bewildered news media, but they cannot back up their talking points with evidence or examples.

Baltimore: no neighborhood rebirth

Camden Yards, considered the prototype for all contemporary urban and urban-like ballparks, has had a long track record (almost 25 years) by which to judge whether the neighborhoods around it have enjoyed windfalls. In Baltimore, the ballpark has not been the boon it was predicted to be:

Camden Yards also launched a trend of placing stadiums in the middle of cities in an attempt at redevelopment, as public officials nationwide mistook its appeal as a sports venue for success as a development catalyst, said Tim Chapin, chairman of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. In fact, he said, the widespread belief that Camden Yards launched a rebirth in downtown Baltimore isn’t true.

“While it expanded the tourist bubble to the west, it didn’t wholesale save the downtown economy or prop up very poor neighborhoods not too far from downtown,” Chapin said.

If the iconic ballpark of the last quarter century did not have a dramatic effect in empowering poor communities in Baltimore, it is reasonable to conclude that a ballpark built in 2014 in Nashville will not have the economic impact the wishful thinkers at Friends of Sulphur Dell intend for us to believe.

On the contrary, if Baltimore's tourism bubble expanded, it is fair to assume that Sulphur Dell could have an impact more in line with that of the new Music City Convention Center. It might be more of a revenue source for Nashville's fat tourism industry than for the neighborhoods of Salemtown, Germantown, Buena Vista and Hope Gardens.

Atlanta: no urban renewal

Baltimore is not the only place where questions are recently raised about the economic fables of sports venues. Atlanta's continuing problems with its sports teams and their facilities have observers wondering about the difference they really made:

A new sports venue presents no guarantee of urban renewal. If you doubt that, look at the scarred neighborhoods surrounding the Georgia Dome and Turner Field. That’s why the contention by [Mayor Kasim] Reed…that a new Falcons stadium will turn around the area comes off as such bunk. If the city really wanted to commit millions to develop new businesses and mixed-use development around the Georgia Dome, it could have done so without a new football stadium.

Likewise, if Nashville cared about its northern neighborhoods, it would spend more money on them with or without the Nashville Sounds ball club and mixed-use developments. It is bad faith to preach economic investment made by local government under the auspices of helping neighborhoods when the benefits disproportionately go to wealthy developers and ball clubs.

This is not to say that there is absolutely no economic potential for Sulphur Dell. One observer concedes that major league ballparks cannot be justified on the basis of hypothetical economic benefits, but he does maintain that small ballparks could economically justify their existence:

Certain types of teams and facilities can produce gains in regional income (albeit small ones: about $67 to about $117 per capita). This contradicts “the vast majority of academic research” on big-league sports, which “has found nonpositive effects on income...employment...sales tax revenues...and spending.”

You’ll pretty much have to take Agha’s word that her conclusions are solid .... But Agha, whose data set included “all of the teams that played minor league baseball between 1980 and 2006,” offers some plausible reasons smaller franchises might confer benefits larger ones do not.

For instance: “Teams can theoretically...generate substantial new spending by out-of-area residents or discourage residents from spending outside the local economy. Both of these are more likely to occur in geographically isolated metro areas.” (That’s bad news for Richmond, which lies just a short hop from Charlottesville, Hampton Roads, D.C. and Baltimore.)

What also might help? Using the stadium for unrelated events, such as marching-band competitions. Coordinated marketing by diverse civic groups. And team stability, which can build community identification.

Assuming Nashville is isolated from other Metro areas enough to keep private revenues here, then we can justify the building of a minor league park like Sulphur Dell at private expense. However, even the modest benefits rising from minor league venues do not justify the investment of public tax dollars in private enterprise. Again, there is practically no deviation by pro sports researchers on that point.

So, just because other cities decide to jump off that cliff, should Nashville? I would say: not without contractual commitments from developers and club owners.

The bottom line is that ballparks are more likely to hurt, rather than help local economies. This is widely acknowledged by the researchers who do not have a dog in the fight even as ballpark boosters repeat "economic investment" like a mantra; as if saying it over and over again makes it true.

Just try and talk to boosters about the costs of tax increment financing for sports teams. They would rather don t-shirts and wax romantic about a sport they may or may not even like. One ballpark bill sponsor thought so much of Sulphur Dell's baseball history that she misspelled its name a couple of times in her press release. It is all window dressing for the transfer of money from public coffers to private wallets with meager returns for the common good.

So don't support a new Sulphur Dell because you assume it will be a catalyst of growth in North Nashville. There is no hard evidence that it can do that.

Support it for other reasons: you believe that anything is better than parking lots, you want to walk to baseball games, history matters more to you than the money, you consider it an expression of urbanism and a chance to foster smart growth and complete streets, or whatever else matters to you. But don't perpetuate the urban myths of growth, not unless you can convince the Metro Council to add regulations and restrictions on developers and club ownership that guarantee intentional and planned economic investment in public, neighborhood infrastructure.

We need a guaranteed return on tax dollar investments given the high risk of subsidizing ballparks. Misplacing faith in private developers is no guarantee.

A dispatch from last Saturday's ersatz community meeting on a Sulphur Dell ballpark

Why is everybody in this town so damned pissed off all the time? What's there to yell about?

-- Developer during a community meeting, Treme (HBO, Season 4, Episode 1)

The juxtaposition between the community meeting portrayed on the HBO Series about post-Katrina New Orleans on Sunday night and the community meeting actually held in Hope Gardens the previous Saturday morning on the Mayor's proposed ballpark could not have been more stark. When Treme's community meeting scene opens venture capitalist/developer Nelson Hidalgo is sitting at the back of a crowd itself angered by the proposed closing of live music venues to make way for a new jazz center. A local resident is standing and shouting at a panel of planners against having what "rightfully" belongs to the neighborhood "gentrified" instead of "rejuvenated". That's when the developer leans over to another character wanting to know why a project that raises people's property values pisses those same people off.

Saturday's meeting in Hope Gardens was attended largely by Metro Council members and Metro government insiders, but I would characterize the community turn-out as anemic relative to other community meetings I attended over the years. There was no shouting from the floor. There were no off-the-cuff questions raised from those in attendance. Instead, CM Erica Gilmore circulated question forms that were filled out and passed to three of the four presidents of local neighborhood associations (the three that had already declared unqualified and unquestioned support for a new ballpark). There was PowerPoint. There were baseball metaphors. It was all monitored and controlled.

Don't misunderstand me. I had a sharp exchange before the meeting started with CM Gilmore who is not happy with my online criticism her recent projects. And then after the meeting was over I was bull-rushed by a free-range rude council member. But the meeting itself was sedate, polished and banal.

During our conversation, CM Gilmore acknowledged that she had gotten the questions I have raised previously in email correspondence, and she encouraged me to write them down on her yellow slips of paper for the presidents to ask. I told her that I was not going to rewrite any questions there because I considered the meeting a circus designed to generate an appearance of community engagement without having to deal with the real messiness of the democratic process. It came across as a filtered farce requiring no accountability to North Nashvillians, many of whom resent being left out of the planning process most of the time.

She has my questions already. I have yet to get her answers. Saturday's meeting was meant to dress the windows.

So the contrast between the realistic meeting I saw portrayed in fiction on Sunday night and the concocted community meeting actually held the Saturday previous was unmistakable.

I came away Saturday morning with growing perception that there is so much about this proposal that we do not know. It was generally the same presentation that was made in October at the Farmers Market. My impression was that most of the same people there on Saturday were at the October meeting. That would make sense given the ridiculous timing of both meetings.

Would the unknown agreements and hidden agendas likely driving a plan introduced less than a month ago cause popular backlash if information did get out over time? The Mayor's supporters are not taking the chance by extending the planning process out past mid-December. They are ramming this through. I hear ballpark supporters talk of having to show up for council's public hearing. I am not sure anyone else can slow it down at this point. The community and concerns are boxed out.

However, there were a few new developments that I did learn about Saturday, some of them prompted by questions from the floor (which were generally good, but not nearly as good or as many as the ones I heard during the October Q&A):

• Architects and planners had not considered pedestrian access across Rosa Parks Boulevard in the initial proposal. The question about Rosa Parks came from the floor. Finance Director Rich Riebeling admitted that they had not looked at Rosa Parks in the original plan, but that they would. The architect present nodded his head and quickly started jotting notes. They did say that they do have access plans for Jefferson St, although they were not specific about what exactly they were going to do to make it safe for pedestrians (it is an acknowledged death trap).
• MDHA funds are available to help finance the ballpark. Presenters did not disclose what those funds are currently being used for or the impact elsewhere of freeing them up to pay for a ballpark. I have said it before: MDHA is a shadow government, and we may never get any accountability as to how those funds are deployed and distributed.
• The architect acknowledged concerns about flooding and said that we should consider the ballpark a "retention pond" in any future flood. While he told the gathering that his team is very well aware of the flooding in the ballpark area, he gave no specifics on how much more or less water the ballpark might contain than the flood plain currently holds. This continues to be a big question in my mind. I will not feel safe unless the "retention pond" holds at least as much as the vacant land does now.
• Mr. Riebeling acknowledged growing concerns about parking in Germantown. He repeated the same wishful thinking that if developers orient the park towards downtown and build a parking garage, then ballpark patrons would be more likely to stay out of the neighborhoods. He did add that if after construction parking begins to be a problem in Germantown, then reserved residential parking would be an option this administration would pursue. Unless CM Gilmore has a change-of-heart, she would seem to be at odds with Mr. Riebeling on this point.
• Mr. Riebeling said that both private developers (including Nashville Sounds owners) will make major announcements in the coming week about their contributions to the project.
• The Sounds ballclub remained as conspicuously absent from this meeting as they have been from every other meeting regarding a ballpark that Metro would build for their benefit. We now have a context for that cop-out: the owner equates minimal public exposure with staying out of politics. I see their evasion (or is it neglect?) as the extension of politics by other means (with apologies to Carl von Clausewitz). 
• Mr. Riebeling said that Metro is pursuing the private-public partnership because he is not aware of any other city with a stadium where it is not being done. Maybe he should do some more homework, because there are cities where such a partnership does not play.

Joint council committees are expected to discuss this plan early in the coming week. Little time left for any yelling. That likely suits the developers just fine.

For those of you looking to spend some quality Thanksgiving holiday time with your family at the meeting on a foregone conclusion

The official Sulphur Dell meeting announcement that went out this week to four neighborhoods, I suppose, is below. Curious that the Salemtown co-host is the association's Vice President rather than President, given that the other association hosts of the meeting are Presidents.

Sulphur Dell Informational Meeting

Discussion of Proposed

Ballpark Project At Sulphur Dell

Saturday, November 30, 2013

9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee

Community Meeting Room

1015 Herman Street

This meeting will focus on the proposed Ballpark Project at Sulphur Dell – a significant public-private partnership that will allow Metro Government to build a new minor league ballpark at Sulphur Dell in the Jefferson Street / Germantown area.  Representatives will give background for the project and explain the proposal.  

Co-Hosted  By

District 19 Councilmember Erica S. Gilmore

At-Large Councilmember Charlie Tygard

Salemtown NA Vice President Mark Bodamer

Hope Gardens NA President Bonnie Bashor

Historic Buena Vista NA President Mark Wright

Germantown NA President Robbie Vaughn

When I read "informational meeting" I still do not think of community meeting. Sounds like representatives are going to do more presenting than listening to the community. Given the unfortunate timing of the meeting, it may not matter since many in the community are naturally focused on the holidays.

UPDATE: Steven Hale reports on the last-minute, thrown-together, ramshackle fashion that CM Erica Gilmore put this meeting together. As far as I am concerned this process has been disgraceful. I won't soon forget the indignity to the community planning process of the scheduling of this meeting. It is her albatross that our own council member put this together because another member--and a conservative one at that--requested it at the last council meeting. She seemed anything but proactive:

Tygard says Councilwoman Erica Gilmore — who represents the area north of downtown where the stadium will be built — offered to put together a public meeting. Tygard took her up on the offer, although the timing of the meeting may only accentuate concerns about pushing the project through during the holiday season. It will be held at 9 a.m. Nov. 30 — the Saturday after Thanksgiving — at Goodwill Industries on Herman Street.

Tygard's absence at two ballpark briefings earlier this month has drawn criticism from some of his council colleagues. But he says he will be at the public meeting. As of this writing, Gilmore says she's still working to see which Metro officials will be able to join them.

So, if Charlie Tygard had not raised an objection and asked in his comments for public meetings, I doubt Erica Gilmore would have lifted a finger to do so. I believe that she would have let this legislation sail through unscathed, with the council public hearing being the only opportunity for the community to give feedback. As it is, I doubt it will get much community blow back on Saturday and who knows whether Metro officials will even show up. The scheduling assures that. What a farce.

In his zeal for a ballpark, Jerry Maynard rewrites our history

Last night I started a post on my impressions of yesterday's Sulphur Dell ballpark community meeting, but it is not in a place where I am satisfied with it. In the meantime, I have been reading the media coverage and noted this:

No one was happier Thursday than At-Large Councilman Jerry Maynard, who at one point before the meeting began, could be seen standing on a chair proclaiming strong support for the project and directing a crowd to pick up red Friends of Sulphur Dell shirts.

"In 2008, we formed Friends of Sulphur Dell right here at Farmers Market, with Freddie [O'Connell, president of the Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association, who was standing nearby] and all the neighborhood association and groups,” Maynard said, following the meeting. “And we didn't know if it was going to happen, but we fought hard for Sulphur Dell because this is the birthplace of baseball [in Nashville]. This is where it should be, the neighborhood ballpark. I'm so excited that it's going to happen. I can't tell you how excited I am. I mean, it's going to happen."

If Friends of Sulphur Dell started in 2008, it is news to me and I have been blogging on North End news since 2005. The group was not announced in Salemtown until 2010, and it was my distinct impression that it was being founded at that time. 2010 was definitely the year that Salemtown Neighbors was invited to participate. The website for Friends of Sulphur Dell was not started until 2011.

CM Maynard's claim that all of the neighborhood associations "fought hard" for a new ballpark in the area is an outright fabrication, misstatement, error and any other word synonymous with "falsehood". Salemtown Neighbors has always expressed a willingness to consider a ballpark as long as all of its questions and concerns were addressed. SNNA appointed me to be one of its representatives to the Sulphur Dell group.

On April 13, 2010, a few days before this group that would become Friends of Sulphur Dell convened at Farmers' Market, Freddie sent a message to the Salemtown Neighbors listserv about a Tennessean reporter incorrectly saying that everyone in our community supported a new ballpark at the early stage:

it seems like the narrative is already that the North End supports Sulphur Dell. He called me yesterday, and I explained that we were not going to take a position till after Saturday's meeting, if at all, and I'm glad he noted that in the story.

After I made it clear in the Sulphur Dell meeting that we were on the fence and that we had particular questions about traffic and parking, and when I asked that we set up community meetings, I stopped being included in the group's proceedings (assuming they had many more after that; the website went quiet in 2011 and did not become active again until August 2013, when news media reported that the Mayor wanted Sulphur Dell).

Where Jerry Maynard now gets the idea (or the gall) to misrepresent Salemtown's support, ambivalence or opposition to a new ballpark is beyond me.

His rewrite of our history is supported by nothing I can find in my records. I received an email saying that Karl Dean told a Hope Gardens resident in 2010 that Sulphur Dell was his preferred location. I was also told by an insider whom I trust that, while the news media was reporting Sulphur Dell as only one option among others the Mayor was considering, the push for finding grassroots support for Sulphur Dell that year came top-down from the Mayor's Office. Around that same time Freddie made it clear to me that he shared concerns the association had about negative quality of life impacts of a new ballpark on Salemtown. He also told me that if Salemtown Neighbors chose to oppose Friends of Sulphur Dell, then it would be a "stumbling block to the unified approach" the boosters were trying to project.

Obviously the council member at-large has taken that disingenuous approach to heart. I hope Freddie took the time yesterday to pull Reverend Jerry Maynard to the curb and to correct his fast-and-loose abuse of the truth in his zeal for a ballpark concept that may or may not be worthy. The record should be set straight.

In the interest of full disclosure

Several years ago Hope Gardens association president Jason Powell contacted North End community leaders to bring together "champions" whom he said could give life to a plan for a new ballpark in the North Capitol area. The "champions" never really materialized as a bona fide grassroots movement here. The "champions'" Facebook page lay dormant for 2 years before cranking up again with the Mayor's formal announcement several weeks ago. Now, as a prominent Democrat and State Representative from south Davidson County's 53rd District (but still a cheerleader without a grassroots ballpark movement), he celebrates news of the Mayor's Sulphur Dell announcement:

It may very well be a big fly for local property owners, especially since the news media is passing around projections that land values here will soar:

The impact a new ballpark could have on that area will be similar... [to] the ripple effect Music City Center had on SoBro, where property values have in some cases tripled in recent years.

If the project becomes official, look for property values to initially jump around 15 percent, [real estate broker Grant] Hammond said. Once construction is underway, Hammond expects prices to climb again, about 25 percent higher than now. Once completed and the buzz of the new stadium is at its peak, Hammond anticipates values will be up about 50 percent from today.

Hammond, who was planning on selling one of his investment properties in Germantown next spring, said he now plans to hold on to the condo until the first season of baseball in the new stadium.

“It could be a remarkable little ride for Germantown,” Hammond said.

With Germantown already flourishing, the biggest impact might be most noticeable in the area’s other neighborhoods.

“Hope Gardens and Buena Vista are seriously underdeveloped,” Hammond said. “That all turns around the moment they open the stadium doors. Those neighborhoods need some sort of big development to be the spark.”

After looking at the Metro property records, I can certainly understand why State Representative Jason Powell is excited about a new ballpark; he co-owns 3 properties located in Hope Gardens and 1 located at Buena Vista Heights/Jones Buena Vista. These are both neighborhoods that are identified as the biggest gainers from a new ballpark. Hope Gardens itself lies blocks away. String half-a-dozen Prince Fielder home runs together end-to-end, and Hope Gardens is that close to Sulphur Dell.

All of us who own property close to a new ballpark stand to benefit financially from a rise in property values a new development would bring. So, I do not blame the Democrat for acquiring investment properties over the last 4 years with hopes that their values will rise even though he does not dwell here any more. However, those of us who continue to live here have to worry about more than a return on real estate. We have to worry about protecting our families' quality of life from malignant growth and shortsighted planning. We have to demand smart, managed growth and planning for sustainability and respect for community character.

I'll say it again: I acknowledge Jason Powell's right to buy up as many properties as he wants and maximize their value to his heart's content. It is America, after all. I also acknowledge his right as a state legislator to maximize his relationship with the coattails of Mayor Karl Dean, who admittedly is the Tennessee Democratic Party's great red-state hope to beat a Republican somewhere sometime in the future. Bucking Karl Dean on a ballpark would not help a guy still fresh in his first state office (after running and losing here in our North Nashville district) and still flush with political aspirations.

But the quaintly walkable tableau that Jason Powell illustrated 3 years ago--as a spokesperson from my community to a Tennessean audience--now rings hollow, given that he presently lives close to the Nashville Zoo and leaves his real estate next to Sulphur Dell:

The neighborhoods, businesses and developments around Sulphur Dell are vibrant, supportive of a new ball park and poised for further growth. Downtown work­ers and residents, in addition to the surrounding neighborhoods of Germantown, Buena Vista, Salemtown and Hope Gardens and condos in the Sulphur Dell area, have the popula­tion to anchor attendance at games.

The location is already well-suited for professional baseball. Imagine grabbing a meal in Ger­mantown or at the Farmers Market, then relaxing at Bicentennial Mall before strolling to the ballpark to catch a game ....

If you build it we will stroll. Well, some of us will stroll. Rep. Powell will not because he no longer lives here. He owns property here. He will be driving to Sounds games at Sulphur Dell.

That is a proposition different than what our neighborhoods will actually face with the onslaught of traffic, the absence of transit plans, the ulterior motives of developers and the shifting goalposts of the community planning process along with the politicians who debase it. At least he has the certainty of greater property value without the challenges of living next to a large entertainment venue. Even so, he also should disclose the fact of his holdings whenever he uses the visibility of his office to tout the new Sulphur Dell.

Whether or not a Sulphur Dell ballpark might be a home run for all of us who live around it is still up in the air. For State Representative Powell it would appear to be more of a walk-off home run.


UPDATE: I guess none of us should be surprised that on opening day of the ballpark (April 17, 2015), Jason Powell is gushing about First Tennessee Park.

Putting himself center: Jason Powell

I think back to those heady days of "Friends of Sulphur Dell" when he was gathering a few friendly neighborhood representatives (ignoring those with questions) and touting his movement as "grassroots," never characterizing it as his own. I suppose it is a lesson in the idea that winners write history, but now Mr. Powell is claiming "the push" for himself. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised by this either:

Elected officials are known for shameless self-promotion, but in this case Mr. Powell should be more honest and concede that he had very little to do with the building of the ballpark. In 2013, it became obvious to all that the real puppet master was Karl Dean. Everything else was pure theater.

Surely the community has celebrated other events since October 13, 2012

Given the status of its "Events" page, I would say "The Capitol District" has either gone dormant or irrelevant or out-of-touch with the actual community events in the four neighborhoods it claims to represent:

Screenshot from Rob Williams' website posted for opinion and comment.

The North End name game steams into full marketing mode

Now that "Capitol District" is promoted in the Tennessean under the auspices of journalism, the PR drive is full steam ahead. The paper also seems to nod to a query I made not too long ago: Capitol District is the latest vehicle for bringing a new minor league ballpark to Sulphur Dell.

Mee-mi-mo-mistrict. District.

"The Capitol District": the latest candidate in the North End name game

So many attempts over the years to brand neighborhoods of Germantown, Salemtown, Buena Vista, Hope Gardens and Harrison Square have not stuck with the community: "Uptown", "Urban Core", "The Market District". Typically, prompted by realtors, brokers, and developers, these monikers were typically formulated to reflect marketing strategy instead of community character.

A "district"? That's it?

The latest entry in the race to brand our area top-down is "The Capitol District," which reportedly has been agreed upon by all of the association presidents and which has a logo and website designed by Rob Williams. Unlike the previous attempts, "The Capitol District" has a slick, glossy design, which makes sense, because a designer has worked on it. We will see if the latest attempt to brand across the neighborhoods holds. In ubiquitous, "We are Nashville" fashion, they offer t-shirts, which is farther than previous marketers went.

I've been calling these neighborhoods collectively "the North End" for nearly 10 years because that was what I first saw it called on Metro Planning maps. Nashville's planners have community meetings with the neighborhoods and so I figured they were in touch with us and knew what they were doing. Plus, the title makes sense; even more sense than either "West End" or "East End", both of which sprawl rather than "end".

However, I'm not opposed to defining ourselves with respect to our proximity to the Capitol, but I'd beg the designers to come up with something less stale, less overused than "District". Downtown is already "The District". The "Market District" really never caught on broadly. We have councilmanic districts, school board districts and US District Courts. "District" even figures prominently in the US Army Corp of Engineers Nashville Twitter feed.

Everywhere we turn there is a "district" in Nashville place titles. Can't we come up with something more original than "District"? How about "Capitol Downs" (after all, we do all sit at the base of Capitol Hill) or "Capitol View" or "Capitol Rim" or "Capitol Quarter"? How about anything less boring, less commercial than another "District" reference?


UPDATE: one thing I should have asked is whether this is veiled attempt to extend the fight for a Sulphur Dell ballpark?

Buena Vista Elementary defended at Salemtown Association meeting

Last Monday night during a neighborhood association discussion with Buena Vista Enhanced Option School leaders, the subject of the rather one-sided 2011 Tennessean article in which predominately white North End parents objected and balked came up. One Salemtown resident who volunteers weekly at Buena Vista bristled at claims that the kids who go there--predominantly poor and African-American--could not perform or behave.

The side I heard on Monday that did not get reported last summer by Nancy DeVille was that the Buena Vista students are well-behaved, enthusiastic and eager to learn in spite of the absence of advantages and resources that children in wealthier parts of Nashville enjoy.

I'm looking forward to us continuing to build a strong partnership with Buena Vista in order to continue to help bring it up where it belongs rather than bailing on it.

Salemtown, Sulphur Dell, and Karl Dean

At some point I'll get to blogging on the details of yesterday's association meeting regarding concerns I blogged about this past weekend. However, there were two rather remarkable revelations divulged that deserve their own space here.

Apparently, our new president has jumped in with both feet to support the Sulphur Dell ballpark. Less than a month into her tenure as the chief, she has joined an effort with Germantown, Hope Gardens, Buena Vista to form a tighter consortium to try and shift Courthouse sentiment (assuming it has ever really waned) back to the concept of a ballpark near Bicentennial Mall. She told us they are looking to brand the group with a hip name like "North Core". They have political heavyweights working with them (politics consultant and PR stud Mike Kopp's name was dropped), and they have a budget (our neighborhood association has yet to even see any 2012 budget proposals).

Salemtown Neighbors is on record having expressed a guarded openness to the ballpark project in the past, pending assurances that increased vehicular traffic would not undermine complete, pedestrian-friendly streets or our North Nashville Community Plan. If the association is to take a more unqualified, enthusiastic response supporting a paid lobbying effort for Sulphur Dell, then we ought be discussing this in open meetings and voting up or down to change our previous stance.

Despite being on the Executive Board, I do not believe that this is a decision that should be decided by executives alone since it affects us all. It would be out of character for us to become top-down. Moreover, all of us would like to see our quality-of-life enhanced by smart growth, but common sense tells us that not all growth is smart just because it makes developers more money. The community needs to be involved to the widest extent possible, and it is imperative now that we not reduce chances for discussions by cutting the frequency of our meetings as proposed.

The second interesting revelation at the meeting was that two of our newly-elected officers have been meeting with Mayor's Office officials and they have an upcoming meeting with Hizzoner himself, Karl Dean, in the near future. I think it is wonderful that the Mayor's Office is reaching out to Salemtown as they have not in the past. It would be super if our officers can convince him to set aside more in his future capital budgets to upgrade our antiquated sewer system or designate more money to parks and recreation so that Morgan Park Community Center can stay open longer hours for our kids, teens, adults, and seniors.

I'll keep an eye on these rapidly developing stories, but please send me any news you hear, too.