Stadium debate heading to extras

Posted 9/8/15

Temperatures soared this week, and summer’s formal conclusion doesn’t arrive until later this month. But with children back in school and Labor Day now past, the traditional end of the season is …

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Stadium debate heading to extras

Posted

Temperatures soared this week, and summer’s formal conclusion doesn’t arrive until later this month. But with children back in school and Labor Day now past, the traditional end of the season is upon us.

Fall’s arrival also marks the waning days of the baseball season. Locally, both the Pawtucket Red Sox and their big-league affiliate in Boston have struggled mightily this year. Indeed, it has been an off-the-field storyline that has captured the Ocean State’s attention – and will likely keep it well after the games have ended.

This week brought some significant developments in the PawSox ownership’s ongoing effort to build a new waterfront stadium for the team in downtown Providence. Talks with Brown University regarding the acquisition of a parcel of land vital to the project as proposed have apparently ceased, with the university’s asking price reportedly far higher than the team is willing to pay. Other financial hurdles remain, including arrangements with the city of Providence.

House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello – who has been supportive of the project, and just weeks ago said a revised proposal was close – has now spoken in more muted tones of the ballpark’s prospects. A special legislative session to take up the matter, which at one point seemed likely, now appears to be off the table.

“The PawSox is an issue that’s just not ready, and it may never be ready to be addressed,” Mattiello told the Providence Journal. “I don’t know if the ballpark is going to happen or not.”

The PawSox have publicly maintained they are not exploring alternative Rhode Island locations for the park, although principal owner Larry Lucchino did recently visit another site in Providence’s Jewelry District that some have suggested.

Other communities are also seeking to woo the team. For months, it has been believed the PawSox would look to cities in Massachusetts and Connecticut were the Providence stadium hopes to evaporate. Locally, the city of Warwick – as first reported in the Warwick Beacon – has submitted a proposal to the team seeking to highlight three potential alternative sites, although the PawSox through a spokesperson indicated that document was never received.

Meanwhile, public opposition to the park – or, at least, to the use of public funding to make it happen – continues to run high, particularly as the 38 Studios debacle makes new headlines. Many continue to question why the team’s owners want to leave Pawtucket, and are calling for the organization to instead invest in improving McCoy Stadium.

At this moment, the future of the PawSox in Rhode Island seems more uncertain than ever before.

We hope to see the team remain here, and encourage its ownership group to more seriously entertain alternative arrangements to make that happen.

And we continue to applaud Gov. Gina Raimondo and other state leaders for insisting that any agreement for a new stadium be in the best interests of the state and its taxpayers.

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