$517-Million Stadium Sets Dubious Record in Seattle

SEATTLE —  The latest and most expensive jewel in a stadium renaissance that changed the look and feel of baseball in the ‘90s and contributed to its survival in several cities opens amid controversy tonight when the Seattle Mariners move into Safeco Field.

The 12th ballpark to have been built or renovated since Toronto’s Skydome opened in 1989 is an eye-popping wonder compared to the dirty and drab Kingdome only a block away. The Mariners’ new home will provide striking views of Elliott Bay, Mt. Rainier, the Olympic Mountains and the city skyline from various locations on clear days, not to mention a verdant grass field sustained in cold weather by hot water running through underground pipes.

No more rug burns on the discolored AstroTurf of the Kingdome, but no more climate-controlled environment either. A retractable roof can cover but does not enclose the new facility.

“For the first time [as a franchise] we’re going to have outdoor baseball here, but with an umbrella as protection,” Mariner President Chuck Armstrong said.

The roof--which will be moved into place if the temperature or wind chill dips below 50 degrees--guarantees to a regional market that the games will be played. But star players Jay Buhner and Ken Griffey Jr. are already talking about a blanket and hand-warmer concession, having lost out on coffee, a Seattle staple that will be dispensed in different varieties at 10 Tully’s stands throughout the park.

The potentially cool conditions--and definitely deeper dimensions--could affect how the ball carries and significantly impact a power-hitting team, but so could the price of all this luxury.

Safeco Field is the most expensive sports facility in North America.

And the issues the Mariners face with the ballpark’s opening tonight against the San Diego Padres are similar to the ones Los Angeles wrestles with as public funds are sought to help build a stadium for a National Football League team.

Financial Dispute Seems Headed to Court

Safeco Field is $100 million over budget at $517 million and far costlier than any of the four parks that will open next year--Enron Field in Houston, Miller Park in Milwaukee, Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco and Comerica Park in Detroit--or those scheduled to open in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and San Diego during the ensuing three or four years. Parks in Philadelphia and Boston are still on the drawing board.

A debate between the Mariners and the Public Facilities District, the government agency responsible for supervising construction, as to who pays the overrun appears headed for court. And Mariner officials, in letters to the agency and conversations with district officials, have said the club may have a difficult time retaining players of the Griffey and Alex Rodriguez stature if forced to pay the $100 million.

The district argues that the Mariner position smacks of extortion and has rejected the club’s request for mediation. An angry Griffey said he didn’t appreciate being put in the middle, and the Mariners subsequently called his and Rodriguez’s agents to say the stadium dispute would not interfere with the attempt to resign the players.

“Ownership has assured me the resources will be there,” Armstrong said in an interview. “We are committed to trying to sign them, but the players have to want to stay here. You don’t build a major league team and a major league ballpark if you’re not going to keep your own players. To the best of my knowledge, they are not being used as a bargaining chip” on the issue of cost overruns.

An enthusiastic crowd of more than 30,000 attended an open house last week and greeted Armstrong with a smattering of boos. John Ellis, the club’s chairman and chief executive officer, was a no-show. The disagreement has tempered enthusiasm.

Art Thiel, a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said the Mariners’ refusal to meet what appears to be a contractual obligation for the overruns has created a “profound sense of betrayal in the community,” although “once people get a glimpse of the park and the excitement builds, there may be growing sentiment to say, ‘Oh, hell, give ‘em the money.’ ” Thiel has renamed the new park “Guilty Pleasure” and calls it “a magnificent place relative to the Kingdome. Of course, it damn well better be for a half-billion.”

The Angels contributed to baseball’s success in Seattle by blowing an 11-game lead that they held in the American League West in August 1995. The Mariners rallied, filled the Kingdome regularly, defeated the Angels in a one-game playoff for the division title, beat the New York Yankees in a rousing playoff series and were credited that year with having revived baseball in the Northwest.

A stadium ballot measure was defeated by fewer than 1,000 votes that winter, but the state Legislature--faced with threats that the club would have to be moved--ultimately agreed to generate $372 million from a restaurant, lottery and car rental tax as the public portion of a $417-million ballpark project. The Mariners agreed to contribute the other $45 million--or basically what they received from the sale of naming rights.

The Mariners also agreed to pay any overruns.

They could not have anticipated what followed.

Environmental issues, weather problems, concrete costs and design changes were among factors that put the project, as Armstrong said, “so staggeringly and astonishingly over budget.”

The stadium was completed with money advanced by the Mariners, but the club’s position, as outlined by Ellis in a letter to the Public Facilities District, is that the team is not responsible for the extra $100 million because “the majority of costs are not cost overruns that expanded beyond a fixed budget, but are unanticipated capital costs required to complete the very structure.”

Legalese aside, Armstrong said the Mariners--who will pay $700,000 a year in rent but retain all revenue--would have remained on “life support” without the new stadium. He estimated that club revenue over a full season in Safeco should increase between $17 million and $25 million a year.

“We’ll never be one of the highest-spending clubs, because we don’t have the media revenue of other markets, but we’re not looking for a big return,” he said. “We just want to stop the bleeding. The new park enhances our ability to field a competitive team every year. But with the escalation in player salaries, unless we solve the industry’s fundamental economic problems, all 30 teams could have a new park and we’ll end up back where we started.

“I remember when we received the huge TV contract from CBS in the ‘80s,” he said. “[Then-Commissioner] Peter Ueberroth said it was an opportunity to get our house in order, but everyone went out and spent it all on players. The parks alone aren’t a panacea. We have to bring about a fundamental change. We need a system that links total revenue to total player compensation so that both management and the players have an incentive to grow the game.”

That, of course, smacks of rhetoric out of the last long labor dispute. There could be another when the current agreement expires after the 2001 season.

In the meantime, with his Brewers moving into a new park next year and his sport enjoying a resurgence, Commissioner Bud Selig isn’t about to dim the glow other than to acknowledge that the disparity issue “remains our No. 1 problem, and there is work to be done on the internal parts of the game.”

Amid the latest salary escalation, he conceded, the parks may not be the panacea they appeared to be in the early ‘90s, but Miller Field, for example, “will transform and lift the Brewers from a typical small-market club to a strong mid-market club.”

Cleveland Shows a New Park’s Impact

Nowhere is the potential better illustrated than in Cleveland, where the Indians are headed for a fifth consecutive division championship and another sold-out season since moving into Jacobs Field, which cost $167 million, opened in 1994. The stadium has also generated $500 million in business revenue for the city, according to the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“It’s allowed us to be competitive,” said Bob DiBiasio, the club’s vice president of public relations. “But you still need a long-term strategy, and you still need to stick with it. And we still can’t make mistakes, whereas the Yankees and Mets can, because of their revenue streams. We can’t afford to spend $12 million on a Hideki Irabu [a pitcher for the Yankees].”

As important as Jacobs Field has been for Cleveland, Selig contends that Baltimore’s Camden Yards, which opened in 1992, will assume a significant place in baseball history because it was the first of the new stadiums to dramatically illustrate the potential for combining the comforts of the new with the feel of the old. It “changed the landscape for everyone, both economically and architecturally,” he said. “It made people aware of the potential and forced other clubs to follow suit.”

With Houston, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Detroit, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Cincinnati, Boston and Philadelphia all in the wings, the Mariners are up next and hopeful of drawing 3 million annually--the Kingdome record was 3.2 million in 1997--to a park that opens tonight with a capacity crowd of more than 40,000 amid the usual array of modern seating comforts and prices. Among them:

Sixty luxury suites going for $75,000 to $145,000 a year; 352 diamond club seats at $100 to $195 a game; 4,300 terrace club seats (with a climate-controlled concourse) for $33 a game; and 966 charter seats--guaranteeing the right to retain the location for 20 years--for $12,000 to $20,000, plus the price of the tickets.

There are also box seats at $28, upper deck seats at $13 and bleacher seats at $5 and $7, many offering some of the best vistas of the nearby landscape, a panorama that will be improved in March when the Kingdome comes down and is replaced by an open-air football stadium for the Seahawks.

A wealth of history is being buried under the wreckage of the old stadiums, but it is doubtful anyone will miss the falling tiles and bleak interior of the Kingdome, unless it is Mariner hitters such as Buhner. He said he wouldn’t miss the physical wear and tear of playing on the worn and torn carpet but would miss the cozy dimensions and consistent elements.

“The Kingdome was an awesome security blanket,” he said. “We knew how to play it and what to expect, and it was a tremendous hitters’ park.

“The new park is a completely different creature and may play differently in July than it does in April, but it’s an exciting move,” he added. “We’re getting back to the way baseball should be played--outdoors and on grass. And they’ve spared no expense, that’s obvious.”

He referred, of course, to that $100-million overrun.

Who pays for it may determine how long Buhner and some of the other illustrious Mariners get to stay and enjoy their new home.

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