Saturday, February 16, 2008

Marlins Get Their Ballpark

Apparently Miami-Dade County has nothin' better to do with $400 million than to give it to Jeff Loria:

The Marlins, Miami-Dade County, the city of Miami and Major League Baseball reached agreement late Friday to finance a $515 million ballpark at the site of the Orange Bowl, according to a source . . .

. . .The deal calls for the county and city to contribute $360 million mainly in tourist taxes and a $50 million general obligation bond Miami-Dade voters approved in 2004 to renovate the Orange Bowl, but which will instead be moved to the ballpark project.The Marlins are to contribute $155 million.

Last I heard, the Orange Bowl site is difficult to get to and isn't serviced by mass transportation. Opponents of the stadium deal have suggested that while such a situation was tolerable for six or seven Hurricanes games a year, it will be a nightmare for eighty-one baseball games.

That's just silly, of course. This is the Marlins we're talking about. Everyone interested in going to their games can just meet in a Winn-Dixie parking lot and carpool there in a couple of vans.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Well, sure, the Orange Bowl is not convenient to public transportation (about 2 miles from the nearest Metrorail stop). But then, nothing in Miami is convenient to public transportation except the area immediately downtown. With that in mind, the Orange Bowl site is better than Dolphins Stadium, but certainly far from ideal. And, given the level of commitment to mass transit here, it's not likely to get any better just because they're building a new stadium.

What makes it all so depressing is that Miami should be a fantastic baseball town: large population, some wealth, big Latin population that's crazy about baseball, no minor league teams.