(already subscribe? log in).

Developers aim to put contaminated site to good use

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | letters | MAKING PITCH FOR A MALDEN BALLPARK

THIS STORY APPEARED IN
Boston Articles
January 20, 2012
  • Developers have proposed a minor league ballpark on the Orange Line in Malden.
Developers have proposed a minor league ballpark on the Orange Line in Malden. (PELLHAM PHILLIPS ARCHITECTS…)

IN RESPONSE to Paul McMorrow’s Jan. 17 op-ed “Baseball’s a bad call at Malden site,’’ I would make the following comments as the person who has proposed the ballpark development.

Like McMorrow, our group does not subscribe to a naive “silver bullet’’ theory of urban redevelopment. We believe that our proposed ballpark is a very good redevelopment use for a contaminated site on which residential development is inappropriate, not the “regressive use’’ McMorrow terms it to be.

As to what has gone wrong elsewhere, every city faces a different set of challenges. We believe that in Malden the availability of Orange Line public transportation across the street, readily available public parking, and easy highway access to a strong regional fan base would be instrumental to our long-term (again, not overnight) success. The National Grid site in Malden has all of those ingredients.

Independent baseball has many long-term success stories, including in St. Paul (2010 average attendance of 5,063) and on Long Island (2010 average attendance of 6,038). Although McMorrow writes that we are “counting on an aggressive 77 percent attendance rate,’’ our projected break-even attendance is 50 percent, or about 3,200. In addition, the independent Atlantic League, our league of choice, and its ballparks are larger than those of Brockton and Lynn and the Can-Am League. Our Atlantic League ballpark, constructed with no Malden public financing, would be a major league-caliber ballpark, only with 6,400 seats.

We see our project as one important piece of the future success story for downtown Malden.

Alex Bok

President and CEO

Boston Baseball Field of Dreams

Boston

Advertisement
Advertisement
|
|
|
|