Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 15, 1994 TAG: 9407160009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
While the referendum is nonbinding, a "yes" vote would be a helpful step. It would clear the way for Salem City Council to proceed with plans to add a valuable asset to the city - and to the entire Roanoke region.
The Salem Bucs, despite their name, draw fans on a regional basis. As a "fast" Class A club, they are in the middle of professional baseball's minor-league hierarchy; the Bucs and Carolina League rival Lynchburg are the highest-classification teams in Virginia west of Richmond.
Under a best-case scenario, the name of the privately owned team would reflect its regional character; funding for a new publicly owned ballpark would be multijurisdictional; and the facility would be more generally accessible, perhaps close to Interstate 81 or 581.
But, given the balkanization of local government in the Roanoke Valley, figuring out such a scenario would take time and concerted effort - time that Salem the city and Salem the ball club don't have, and concerted effort that local municipalities have been notably unable to muster.
The existing Municipal Field, 67 years old and decaying, falls far short of standards set after the 1990 season by Major League Baseball for minor-league stadiums. A new ballpark won't guarantee that the Bucs will stay - certainly not forever, anyway. But failure to build the new facility could well guarantee that 1994 is minor-league baseball's last year in sports-loving Salem.
Spurned by adjacent localities in its request for funding help (though the request itself could have been better handled), the go-it-alone city instead has come up with a good-case scenario.
Baseball fans have favorably greeted drawings of the proposed park. The site, in the complex that contains the Salem Civic Center and Salem (football) Stadium, will provide more-than-adequate parking and at least decent accessibility. The ballpark design, by Kinsey Shane and Associates, allows for future expansion to 12,000 seats, should that prove desirable. The best feature of the old park, the panoramic view of mountains beyond the outfield fences, would be retained.
Calculations of a new ballpark's benefit to the Salem economy vary widely. But even minimal estimates of the Buccaneers' economic contribution suggest that the cost of a new facility, assuming Salem doesn't lose its minor-league franchise, would be paid back long before the ballpark's useful life has ended.
The city-owned park would not, of course, be limited to minor-league baseball. The facility might be ideal, for instance, for the NCAA Division III (small college) baseball World Series that Salem would like to host.
In the final analysis, though, economic payback is only part of the reason to support Salem's ballpark proposal, and not necessarily the biggest part.
Minor-league baseball has a long history in the Roanoke Valley, a family-fun amenity that for years has made more pleasurable the lives of thousands of valley residents. For the past 26 years, this amenity has come in the form of a Salem franchise in the Carolina League.
Without a new park, the franchise could be lost, and life in Salem and the Roanoke region would be the poorer for it. With a new park of reasonable cost and sound design, life here would be that much the richer.
by CNB