IDLE CHATTER: A new Revolution stadium in RI?

[Cotuit]

Boston is moving to land a stadium to house the New England Revolution [UP.Boston thread] [Boston.com].

Should Providence try to get it? Can Providence get it?

[citybuilder]

Boston is moving to land a stadium to house the New England Revolution [UP.Boston thread] [Boston.com].

Should Providence try to get it? Can Providence get it?

All data below from Wikipedia.

I don't think we've got the numbers to support the economics for this one. Our best comparison is the PawSox. McCoy seats about 10,000, and they average 85%+ attendance (top 5 in the nation, btw). However the purpose-built soccer stadiums are 20-30K, an attendance level we don't have any history of being able to drive in this market. Plus our weather, along with MLS's season, ensures the stadium couldn't make $ doing double duty as an event venue.

The Revolution average attendance is ~12,500 last season, down significantly over the last decade. But apparently it is nearing profitability. I'd guess the owner (Robert Kraft) wants to make sure it will make it to profitability - and more, by moving attendance up. Providence seems too big a chance for that scenario.

And this is without discussing the financing implications in a city/state that is overleveraged on bond issues, and has pressing needs to issue more !

[Dan]

The team would still market itself to fans from all over New England, at least all of southern New England. There's a huge immigrant community in Providence, a larger percentage of whom are soccer fans than Americans here. I'm sure this is the strategy for Boston as well... Bringing the games from the middle of the woods to a stadium in a city (like Providence) gives fans real access to the sport.

If I'm not mistaken, years ago Mr. Kraft proposed that the State of RI pay to build a stadium for the Pats on the parcel where The 903 was constructed. The state should not be in the sports entertainment and construction business.

Bob, C'mon down and build it yourself!

Where would a stadium go if it were to be built in Providence?

[brick]

I think Providence should definitely get in on the Revs. Price the game similar to the PawSox and I think you would get plenty of attendees.

[Jerry2]

The team would still market itself to fans from all over New England, at least all of southern New England. There's a huge immigrant community in Providence, a larger percentage of whom are soccer fans than Americans here. I'm sure this is the strategy for Boston as well... Bringing the games from the middle of the woods to a stadium in a city (like Providence) gives fans real access to the sport.

If I'm not mistaken, years ago Mr. Kraft proposed that the State of RI pay to build a stadium for the Pats on the parcel where The 903 was constructed. The state should not be in the sports entertainment and construction business.

Bob, C'mon down and build it yourself!

Where would a stadium go if it were to be built in Providence?

Allens Avenue waterfront!

[mr2448]

Allens Avenue waterfront!

The truth about New England soccer is that most of the fans are from the Providence/FallRiver/New Bedford area rather than the Boston/Framingham/Worcester area. That is why they have drawn more than when they were in the city of Boston. Also, the Patriot numbers didn't increase until they moved to Foxboro. Why, because the majority of fans are from south and east of the stadium. Boston as a sports city is not equal to most major big league cities. Their teams are new England regional teams more than Boston teams.

If Columbus, Ohio can have a soccer team than Providence can also. Location? How about along 95 where Pawt and Prov meet. West of the railroad tracks or on the East Providence waterfront where a division 2 soccer team has been successful for years?

BTW: where is our Arean football team? That would draw fans to the DDC!

Mark

[Jerry2]

The truth about New England soccer is that most of the fans are from the Providence/FallRiver/New Bedford area rather than the Boston/Framingham/Worcester area. That is why they have drawn more than when they were in the city of Boston. Also, the Patriot numbers didn't increase until they moved to Foxboro. Why, because the majority of fans are from south and east of the stadium. Boston as a sports city is not equal to most major big league cities. Their teams are new England regional teams more than Boston teams.

If Columbus, Ohio can have a soccer team than Providence can also. Location? How about along 95 where Pawt and Prov meet. West of the railroad tracks or on the East Providence waterfront where a division 2 soccer team has been successful for years?

BTW: where is our Arean football team? That would draw fans to the DDC!

Mark

The area along 95 by Pawtucket is a cemetary on 1 side and an underutilized office park on the other with tons of available land. If you remember during the Cianci days, he threw tax incentive after tax incentive to get companies to move here. DHL Express set up their NE headquarters there and now they are gone. Cingular had a headquarters there. They are gone. There are 3 underutilized office parks with tons of developable land in the Silver Spring, Huntington ( Cranston St.), and the park around the Post Office. After all the hoopla about the film industry here in RI, I would like to see some sort of production facility move in ( with the state's help or not) and give a central location to set up shop. All 3 offer plenty of parking and easy convenient highway access.

While this may be one of my smaller pet peeves @ the city, I'll get back to the original topic. Soccer is most popular with Latinos and Portuguese. The Providence metro has the highest Portuguese population in the entire US( about 1/4 million) It's also home to about 100K Latinos as well. Although the office parks contain a lot of land, a stadium would strain the entire neighborhood with congestion, noise, etc. The Allens Avenue district is far from residential, has easy highway access, and could be the catalyst for developing the entire waterfront.

[Frankie811]

After all the hoopla about the film industry here in RI, I would like to see some sort of production facility move in ( with the state's help or not) and give a central location to set up shop.

As we had already discussed here already, the PO owns the only available piece of land down there and I'm not even sure it would be big enough for a stadium.

[Frankie811]

After all the hoopla about the film industry here in RI, I would like to see some sort of production facility move in ( with the state's help or not) and give a central location to set up shop.

If you may may remember, the state tried this years ago during the Almond administration at the Cranston St armory. Almond ended up selecting two final proposals, one from a Hollywood production company, another from independant film maker Frank Corrente who as you know is from Providence. The Hollywood Co had the money, Corrente did not. So who did the state choose. Corrente! Probably because it was an election year. And it took Almond sonething like a year or two to make up his mind Well as it turned out Corrente couldn't get the financial backing to make it happen

[CtownMikey]

If you may may remember, the state tried this years ago during the Almond administration at the Cranston St armory. Almond ended up selecting two final proposals, one from a Hollywood production company, another from independant film maker Frank Corrente who as you know is from Providence. The Hollywood Co had the money, Corrente did not. So who did the state choose. Corrente! Probably because it was an election year. And it took Almond sonething like a year or two to make up his mind Well as it turned out Corrente couldn't get the financial backing to make it happen

so can hollywood come in?

[Lone Ranger]

I think Providence should definitely get in on the Revs. Price the game similar to the PawSox and I think you would get plenty of attendees.

Never been to a MLS game, here or anywhere, but it definitely looks to me that this is a notch above the PawSox in pricing. The most expensive PawSox ticket you can buy is, what, 12 bucks? God I love that place!

On the other hand, the MLS soccer season appears to be extremely short. 20 games, max? I think we could handle that in Providence. There's a big difference here between, say, a pro baseball franchise. We had this discussion awhile back. No way do I believe that Providence could support 81 home dates at 30,000 people a night: a major-league baseball team would never survive here. But could Providence support 15,000 a night for 10 home dates? Easily, I think.

As citybuilder points out, the Revs averaged 12.5K per game last year.

For that same reason, the short season, I like the idea of trying to get an AFL franchise in Providence.

Edit: but I don't think we have the money to build Mr Kraft a the stadium he almost assuredly wants us to fund.

[Recchia]

I think Allens Ave would be great, or in between Elmwood and Wellington in Cranston, especially if they get commuter rail/light rail running to that spot. Then people from around Boston could take the train to PVD and then down to the stadium either by light rail or continuing on commuter rail.

[Carter711]

Remember when Kraft was talking with Cianci about a Patriots Stadium in Providence? I don't know exactly how serious the talks got, but I do remember seeing it on the news quite a bit (of course the Boston stations were all over it). Does anybody know where in the city they were planning to put the stadium then?

[runawayjim]

when is the MLS season? could a small stadium be built, maybe one that could potentially hold more but make it easy to close off about 10k seats? if we can nearly fill mccoy and fill the dunk for the big PC games, why can't we fill a soccer stadium, especially if it's cheap (i see a range from like $6-15 for tickets). i know a bunch of people who would go. there's the international students at the colleges who love it (the world cup was big in my office because we have a kid from nepal working with us). and then there's all the hispanic and portugese immigrants here who would love to watch soccer.

depending on the season, could it also be used for large concerts, much in the way the dunk or the uconn football stadium are used? bring the stones/springsteen/[iNSERT 60 YEAR OLD ROCK STAR HERE] to providence rather than foxboro!

[Lone Ranger]

if we can nearly fill mccoy and fill the dunk for the big PC games, why can't we fill a soccer stadium, especially if it's cheap (i see a range from like $6-15 for tickets).

Sorry, my previous link doesn't seem to be working. But this is the pricing scheme for individual tickets, taken directly from the Rev's homepage.

Ticket Prices

Cat. I $34

Cat. II $25

Cat. III $18

So I guess you could call it reasonable, but it's not what I would call truly cheap. It's not quite, as I said before, in the same price range as McCoy. Or the Friars. Or, probably, the P-Bruins. Hold on, lemme check on that. Yeah, it seems to be a little pricier than the P-Bruins too.

[KRC]

The area along 95 by Pawtucket is a cemetary on 1 side and an underutilized office park on the other with tons of available land. If you remember during the Cianci days, he threw tax incentive after tax incentive to get companies to move here. DHL Express set up their NE headquarters there and now they are gone. Cingular had a headquarters there. They are gone. There are 3 underutilized office parks with tons of developable land in the Silver Spring, Huntington ( Cranston St.), and the park around the Post Office. After all the hoopla about the film industry here in RI, I would like to see some sort of production facility move in ( with the state's help or not) and give a central location to set up shop. All 3 offer plenty of parking and easy convenient highway access.

While this may be one of my smaller pet peeves @ the city, I'll get back to the original topic. Soccer is most popular with Latinos and Portuguese. The Providence metro has the highest Portuguese population in the entire US( about 1/4 million) It's also home to about 100K Latinos as well. Although the office parks contain a lot of land, a stadium would strain the entire neighborhood with congestion, noise, etc. The Allens Avenue district is far from residential, has easy highway access, and could be the catalyst for developing the entire waterfront.

Excellently said! From what I observed in Providence/East Providence alone during the World Cup, I do believe that Southeastern New England does indeed have the numbers to support a team. You see sports passion that rivals our love for the Sox in every local bar and social club. Now, that's passion.

[Frankie811]

Remember when Kraft was talking with Cianci about a Patriots Stadium in Providence? I don't know exactly how serious the talks got, but I do remember seeing it on the news quite a bit (of course the Boston stations were all over it). Does anybody know where in the city they were planning to put the stadium then?

It wasen't Cianci, rather former Gov Lincoln Almond who had offered Kraft $93 or 95 million in some sort of financial help, which he turned down. But I don't think that he had any intention of coming here or to Hartford. He wanted to stay in Foxborough on the land that he owned. Everyone seems to forget that before Robert Kraft began negotiations with Boston officials to locate a stadium there (South Boston???) he evicted the operator of the harness race track which was operating on, you guess it, the land where the new stadium now stands. After playing Providence and Hartford against MA he finanly got what he wanted. Infrastructure help, to the tune of $ 52 mil if I remember correctly. It's interesting to note that after Boston officials fought his stadium project they are now trying to lure him.

The Providence stadium was suppose to go along the West side of Rt 95 behind the Providence Place Mall. The owner of the Promenade property publicly stated at one point that no one had ever approached him to discuss a sale of his property which was a signal to me that this would never happen.

[Recchia]

The Providence stadium was suppose to go along the West side of Rt 95 behind the Providence Place Mall. The owner of the Promenade property publicly stated at one point that no one had ever approached him to discuss a sale of his property which was a signal to me that this would never happen.

Thank God he didn't build there, then we wouldn't have the luxurious 903!

[Cotuit]

Infrastructure help, to the tune of $ 52 mil if I remember correctly.

I wouldn't want to publicly fund a stadium, but I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to infrasturcture 'help.' Sited properly, the infrastructure could help more than just the stadium, and when I think of infrastructure, one thing I'm thinking about is streetcars. $52million to build up sprawl wasn't the best investment for Massachusetts, but a similar amount of infrastructure work in Providence would be.

[brick]

I wouldn't want to publicly fund a stadium, but I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to infrasturcture 'help.' Sited properly, the infrastructure could help more than just the stadium, and when I think of infrastructure, one thing I'm thinking about is streetcars. $52million to build up sprawl wasn't the best investment for Massachusetts, but a similar amount of infrastructure work in Providence would be.

How about making the stadium also be the intermodal transit hub? I know this sounds insanely stupid on the surface, but it could make sense, like the Garden/North Station in Boston. Some possible locations with pros and cons:

Station Park: Pro - can add on to existing train station.

Con - hard to figure the logistics of intermodal, small parcel even if you use the existing station.

Burnside Park: Pro - Center of town. Existing transit hub of sorts. Noone seems to use the park anyway.

Con - no train tracks, so commuter rail would still go to the Amtrak station.

Capital Cove: Pro - large parcel, largely unused. Plenty of surface parking at all of the state offices and Citizens building. In an ideal world, KP could then be transferred to this area somehow and use up some of that surface parking.

Con - Shape of parcel would probably require some re-decking of the Moshassuck and possibly taking a lane from Canal St. (hidden pro?) Current KP would probably become surface parking.

Really, the 903 spot would have been perfect for this. Plenty of underutilized land, right next to the train tracks, etc.

[Cotuit]

How about making the stadium also be the intermodal transit hub? I know this sounds insanely stupid on the surface, but it could make sense, like the Garden/North Station in Boston.

It doesn't sound insanely stupid, but I don't think any of your proposed locations would work.

195 land would work, but Kraft doesn't want to wait that long.

[Johnzo]

If you remember during the Cianci days, he threw tax incentive after tax incentive to get companies to move here. DHL Express set up their NE headquarters there and now they are gone. Cingular had a headquarters there. They are gone. There are 3 underutilized office parks with tons of developable land in the Silver Spring, Huntington ( Cranston St.), and the park around the Post Office.

I'm not sure if I would call the Silver Spring park underutilized. I believe Sodexho has set up shop in the old DHL space. Lighthouse Medical has taken over the old Excel plant. AAA has a major operation in there (as well as their regional tow truck base), Venda Ravioli has something in there as does Pastry Gourmet. Also, there's the Amtrak yard and the MBTA layover facility. So, basically, I don't think that Silver Spring is the park to wipe out.

I'm not really familiar with the Huntington park. Is anyone?

[Jerry2]

I'm not sure if I would call the Silver Spring park underutilized. I believe Sodexho has set up shop in the old DHL space. Lighthouse Medical has taken over the old Excel plant. AAA has a major operation in there (as well as their regional tow truck base), Venda Ravioli has something in there as does Pastry Gourmet. Also, there's the Amtrak yard and the MBTA layover facility. So, basically, I don't think that Silver Spring is the park to wipe out.

I'm not really familiar with the Huntington park. Is anyone?

As usual, I had so many ideas in my head and had to cram them all into this topic....probably after a few drinks....Anyways, I think the soccer stadium would be great for the Allens Ave. waterfront. As far as the office park scenario, I still think they are way under-utilized.When you have companies like Davol and others move to Warwick because they prefer surface parking convenience, it bothers me to no end when we have some parks like that already set up that would be able to accomodate those said businesses. Gem Plumbing just moved to Lincoln because they had completely outgrew their space on Douglas as they have become one of the largest in all of NE. Casali or whatever Bros. bakery production facility also moved to Lincoln from their Silver Lake facility because of space. What will happen to the Locomotion businesses when they have to get out? Space is definitely an issue in the city without a doubt. However, I think the city should be trying to retain some of these outlets and market these areas a little better.

Huntington office park is off Cranston Street near the Cranston line. There is a Bank of America processing center there( not their brand new facility that EP got) and a few factories, but it still has tons of potential. As far as Silver Spring goes, I've been through it during the day and it seems empty. ( with the exception of AAA)

[Frankie811]

As far as Silver Spring goes, I've been through it during the day and it seems empty.

At night, teens like to go there to drag race. The PPD observe this area.

[Johnzo]

As for a soccer stadium... I think there would be issues with attracting other events to such a facility, with Gillette not that far away. Rentschler Field works well for Hartford because there aren't any other outdoor stadiums in the Hartford area. They're able to get those major outdoor concerts and stuff.

Perhaps if the stadium were to host PC's soccer team along with the Revs, and hosted some football games during the winter (not the Pats obviously, but maybe the Brown-URI game and high school playoffs), it could work. Also, it could provide space to allow PVD to bring back events like the X games.

Allens Ave. would be a great spot for this, but I'm not sure if there is enough available land.