Shockoe Center project appealing, but needs city credit support
Image of the Shockoe Center ballpark development.
Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones said today that while he is not ready to give the official go-ahead to the proposed $363 million Shockoe Bottom development that includes a downtown baseball stadium, he thinks it has the potential to be a transformative project.
But, Jones said, based on the executive summary of the proposed project, it is highly unlikely it can be financed without the credit support of the city. Jones said if the city provides credit support, the amount financed would drop from over $80 million to $60 million because of the city's credit rating. Jones said the increase in tax revenue needed to support payment for the bonds would be 2.1 percent in sales tax.
Jones said that the project needs to contain a transit element, GRTC transfer station, a retail core and a black history venue, and that baseball is just one part of the project.
For more, read tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch
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Reader Reactions
Has the city lost its’ mind? Does the failure of the Richmond braves and our current stadium ring any bells? How about the bell that says Richmond doesn’t care much about baseball. Can we please put this money to BETTER use? Like maybe the local school systems?
DickTracy: so can I count you chaining yourself to a tree when the bulldozers come and start building? Your passion against this thing could be directed towards more useful things…
Dick Tracy, you are too good! Be careful, lest someone from the “powers that be” recognize you and send in the swat team. You make waayy too much sense to be ignored, but I’m certain the Davenport guys can find a way to “gloss” over your points with prepayments from the RMA and hidden tax increases for everyone who doesn’t live in the Bottom (and who will not reap any of the supposed benefits which probably will NOT accrue, as you pointed out). Or maybe we can get another $100,000 study done that will justify this boondoggle in another way so city council can get on with their foregone conclusion.
I’d like to start a business in Shockoe Bottom. But I need $60 million in taxpayer dollars to do it. Where can I apply for my $60 million?
This footnote—as I must turn in and
life is better on the other side—
I know you all will sleep well tonite dreaming of fat basted pigs with baseballs in their mouths…Dream on
ye behemoth sluggards and besotted lot of dreamers. Long is the night for such
fancy—It is a sad awakening you will
see—devoid of subtance with no toy
in the bottom of the box….
I certainly hope this city can find the leadership necessary to bring much needed change and vitality to this city. The locals who won’t go to the Shockoe Stadium are the same ones who did not go to the Diamond. Let them stay in their sterile cul-de-sacs, while the rest of us enjoy a downtown worth having (along with the new “come heres” it will attract).
I give the consultant credit for creativity.
By restructuring the RMA debt and paying millions of dollars owed to the city (many years in advance of when they would otherwise be paid), the city can essentially build their ballpark with the toll money of Chesterfield and southside Richmond commuters.
They claim this wouldn’t require a toll increase (a dubious claim at best since we have no idea what kind of debt restructuring can be accomplished) but what they probably won’t emphasize in the report is that the tolls would be thereby guaranteed to remain on the roads an extra 20 years or so.
THANK GOODNESS I DON’T LIVE ON CHURCH HILL OR SHOCKOE VALLEY !!!!
VaLiberal has it absolutely correct. A stated in my earlier post—the Queen came in 2007—the people saw her and left. Richmond is not an urban mart—the average person does not linger longer downtown except the drunks and bangers. It is NOT a baseball city. Every small and medium sized effort to effect this renaissance in the downtown has failed—failed bad. The real-estate
people are just beginning to realize this and their nightmare will set in
in the next several years—we’re talking big busts here folks. Riverfront
development—big time not. The ignorant heaven on earth delusions of Richmond becoming the next big thing are as old as the hills—this has nothing to do with negativism or trying to hold Richmond back. I would be more than happy for the town to come into its own (which it has not since the civil war) It was cigarettes and chewing tobacco that got it through the Depression—not show biz , baseball or munitions building. And we are in another Depression—but the scenery has changed. As stated earlier, many’
Of the people who have posted on this subject are baseball cases—who probably spend half their life at baseball card shows…They are like the NASCAR crowd—they wouldn’t care if the stadium were built on their mothers grave—. There is something the public is not being shown in this mirage—some big clog that only a professional Joe the plumber can get out…The big losers in all of this will be the real estate investors who are now on the verge of bankruptcy—and the tax base. Nobody with any sense will want to live next to this disaster—Just ask the people in the slip, the bottom and the hill now…go ask them—we’re in serious trouble folks if this fantasy is taken to the next ship—bail ship and take
your support…outside
Tell me again why a commercial sport is the responsibility of the taxpayer??
Or why a retail center comes out of the taxpayer’s pocket?
I missed that part.
I thought the times were tight and government was reducing expenditures to match income. Or are we following the Obama plan and tossing borrowed money we don’t have down the drain and just putting it on the kids’ charge cards?
I’d still like to know why the cost of this thing keeps rising??? It was $318 mill now it’s $363 mill? Maybe this is why it’s now costing the city money to build it… Anyone who thought they wouldn’t tax a dime of tax money were only fooling themselves. Now the truth is out…
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