Marlins Hope New Home in Future
MIAMI — The Florida Marlins envision a tax-financed waterfront ballpark with a retractable roof that will draw nightly crowds of 30,000, revitalizing the franchise and downtown.
Opponents fear public money being diverted from more pressing needs to erect a concrete eyesore that misuses parkland and fails to improve attendance or the local economy.
As the debate enters the late innings, the Marlins appear to be closing in on their greatest triumph since the 1997 World Series: a deal for a $385 million, 40,000-seat stadium to end talk that the team might move or fold. In negotiations, the Marlins are rounding third and hope to be heading soon for a new home.
They aren’t there yet. The site for the project remains undetermined, the financing plan has received only tentative approval, and the deal still needs the support of the governor and the Florida Legislature.
If the Marlins fail to clear any of those hurdles, they may be stuck in Pro Player Stadium.
“This is our last shot,” team owner said John Henry said.
In December, the multimillionaire commodities broker and Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas agreed to a financing blueprint for the project. Greg Bush, president of the Urban Environment League of Miami, said opposition has grown in recent weeks.
“Here’s a very wealthy individual looking for a lot of tax dollars when baseball is paying such large salaries for players,” Bush said. “We’re in an era when more people are questioning these things, and I would certainly raise serious questions about the funding.”
But Bush and most everyone else agree the Marlins have the momentum.
“Things are heading in a good direction,” Penelas said. “The consensus is that people want to do the project.”
“I’m very optimistic,” Henry said.
The sport’s record in such showdowns is good. In city after city, fear of losing baseball has allowed teams with sagging attendance to overcome opposition to a new stadium, fueling a nationwide ballpark-building boom.
The Marlins’ chances appeared doomed last Opening Day, when the governor sank a plan to pay for the project with a cruise tax. Henry came back with a new proposal, and two years of political arm-twisting may be about to pay off.
The site is the most contentious remaining issue.
“I’m not sure financing is as big an issue as the location itself,” Penelas said.
The Marlins prefer a public park along Biscayne Bay near the Miami Heat’s year-old arena, but opposition to the site may be insurmountable.
“They’re looking for free land that’s valued at $150 million to $200 million,” said Bush, who is also chairman of the city parks advisory board. “As time goes on, more and more people are saying that’s nuts.”
Several alternatives, all in or near downtown, are under consideration. Henry is pushing for quick action so the ballpark can open in 2004, and the city commission is expected to choose a location March 15.
“We’re willing to go anywhere where it makes sense,” Henry said.
Still to be debated is the financing plan, which would include $118 million in hotel bed tax money and a $122 million tax rebate that must be approved by the Legislature. Gov. Jeb Bush, whose home is Miami, declined to take a position on the proposal.
“The local community needs to take charge of this,” the governor said. “They are making progress. ... Given the budget conditions, I don’t know where we stand with their request.”
Since buying the team in January 1999, Henry has argued the Marlins need a new home to increase revenue so they can field a contender. Last season, their player payroll of less than $20 million was baseball’s second-lowest, but because of poor attendance the team still lost $10 million, Henry said.
Many fans dislike cavernous Pro Player Stadium, built for football and retrofitted for the Marlins when they began play in 1993. The suburban location is in the center of sprawling South Florida, but almost daily summer rain is a big problem, which is why the new ballpark would have a retractable roof.
No one knows how successful a downtown ballpark would be. Heat attendance at their new $215 million arena has been disappointing, and the spillover effect on the neighboring economy has been minimal.
But Henry says: “We can’t exist where we are.”
Timid in the spotlight, Henry is apparently persuasive behind closed doors. He has pledged to return 90 percent of any profits to the community and to change the team’s name to the Miami Marlins.
Even though the city has flirted with bankruptcy in recent years, resistance to spending tax money on another sports complex seems to be crumbling. Among those swayed is the Miami-Dade mayor.
“I’ve put aside my own philosophical concerns about using public money for this kind of venture,” Penelas said. “As mayor of a large community, I’ve got to balance my own feelings with the reality the team may be gone in ’02 if we don’t do something. It would be a black eye we would have as community. We would never live it down.”
No major league team has moved in 30 years, and Henry has repeatedly said he wants to keep the Marlins in South Florida. But failure to win an agreement on a new ballpark would leave the franchise’s future in doubt. At the least, it would mean dismantling the team’s talented but increasingly expensive young roster, which would ensure losing records and small crowds for years to come.
For the moment, however, the Marlins’ outlook is bright. Manager John Boles predicts the first winning season since 1997, and the first game in a state-of-the-art stadium could be just three years away.
