Unrealized Stadiums

[pmoehrin]

On 2/19/2019 at 10:22 PM, Dilbert said:

The Reds looked at renovating and retrofitting Riverfront Stadium including renovating the outside and shifting the field orientation slightly to face the skyline rather than US Bank Arena and the river. They slightly went through with this when they tore out seats to make room for building Great American Ball Park.

 

Two sites for the Reds were considered, the riverfront and Broadway Commons. This was the proposed riverfront site where GABP is

 

This was the Broadway Commons stadium. It wasnt in a good neighborhood. Today its the site of the JACK casino.

 

In the 90s when both the Reds and Bengals were looking at new stadiums, the Reds were looking at the Paul Brown site while a new or renovated stadium for the Bengals would be at the existing Riverfront Stadium site.

 

 

Cincinnati briefly proposed bidding for the 2012 olympics that would have added more venues including the Olympic Stadium on the other side of the bridges and Paul Brown Stadium and GABP

 

 

This bid included retrofitting Nippert Stadium and building a dome for it.

 

I like how these concepts range from modest renovations to Riverfront Stadium to, let's try bringing in the Summer Olympics.

 

Its the stadium equivalent of going out to dinner and being undecided between ordering the T-bone steak, or purchasing the deed to the restaurant.

[SFGiants58]

I posted this over in the MLB expansion thread, but this project for a Greensboro/Kernersville venue for the Twins is a fascinating one.

 

The plan started when Carl Pohlad considered selling the Minnesota Twins to Mike Solomon and other NC investors.

 

 

The idea deal was to build in Greensboro, in the middle of farmland. Needless to say, this ridiculously stupid idea (if you’re from the area, please correct me if I’m wrong) failed at the ballot and the Twins remained in Minnesota.

 

@sc49erfan15 pointed out the flaws here:

 

 

[neo_prankster]

Isn't Greensboro pretty far from Charlotte or Raleigh?

[SFGiants58]

8 minutes ago, neo_prankster said:

Isn't Greensboro pretty far from Charlotte or Raleigh?

 

I'd say it's a decent amount.

 

On 2/18/2019 at 3:05 PM, sc49erfan15 said:

 

 It's a 20-25 minute drive from both downtown Winston-Salem and downtown Greensboro.

 

The Piedmont Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point) is home to upwards of 1.5 million residents, which isn't anything to sneeze at, but it's entirely too spread out to get the daily type of attendance you'd need for an MLB team. And, as we've seen, rural/suburban baseball stadiums aren't exactly optimal for attendance. There would be absolute minimal draw from Charlotte (~90 minutes), Durham (~1 hour), and Raleigh (~90 minutes), especially for weekday/weeknight games.

 

On 2/18/2019 at 3:35 PM, sc49erfan15 said:

Put it this way - the airport is closer to Greensboro's city center than that stadium would've been. The Twins would've been trying to leave within 5 seasons.

 

That's just a terrible situation all-around.