Hartford Would Lose $1 Million Without Baseball This Year – Hartford Courant
HARTFORD — The city stands to lose more than $1 million if baseball isn’t played at Hartford’s delayed downtown stadium this year.
City leaders recently fired the ballpark’s developers, DoNo Hartford LLC and Centerplan Cos., casting doubt on whether the Yard Goats minor league team will play at its new home this season. Mayor Luke Bronin said the move was prompted by an email from the developers estimating it would take another 60 days or more for the stadium to meet Hartford’s building codes.
The developers had already missed a key deadline in May to “substantially” complete the facility.
Hartford would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars each in rent, tax revenue from game day tickets, event parking and a portion of the stadium’s naming rights if the team doesn’t play in the city this year.
If the ballpark had opened as originally planned in April, the city would have taken in $1.06 million, a relatively small but needed boost amid Hartford’s fiscal woes. The initial grand opening of the stadium was planned for April 7, but that was pushed back to late May after the developer acknowledged cost overruns last winter.
DoNo and Centerplan missed that deadline, too, but they contend that the design the city gave them did not meet its own building codes.
The city will still need to make a $2.7 million payment to the Hartford Stadium Authority, the quasi-public agency that owns and finances the ballpark, in 2017. Hartford is leasing the facility from the authority and subleasing it to the Yard Goats.
That payment will rise to $4.8 million in 2018.
Bronin said that although the $1 million in revenue from the stadium wasn’t built into the city’s 2016-17 budget, any loss of funds is a blow to Hartford.
“Since the prior administration borrowed a whole lot of money to build it, I’m obviously extremely frustrated that the development team they chose to build it has not come through,” he said. “Obviously, there’s no question it would be better to have it done.”
Perhaps the only bright spot in the delay is that Hartford won’t have to spend the roughly $300,000 it had planned for police services around the stadium, such as traffic control.
Bronin has said the developers didn’t provide assurances that they had the financial resources to complete the 6,000-seat stadium without seeking more money from the city.
The mayor last month announced his intention to pull the performance bond that guarantees the developer’s contract will be fulfilled. The city had hoped work could continue, but was told by Arch Insurance that the contract would have to be terminated. Arch is expected to take a week or two to investigate the claim.
The Yard Goats, the Double A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, played in New Britain last year as the Rock Cats. There is now an independent Atlantic League team playing in New Britain.
The delay of baseball in Hartford has hurt more than city hall’s bottom line. Several local establishments have likely missed out on an economic lift.
“The hope behind building a stadium downtown was that other businesses would pick up revenues,” said Nick Perna, an economist and adviser to Webster Bank. “It’s not like we’re watching the Yankees in the playoffs, but you never know when people may want to make an outing of it.”
He noted that several restaurants and hotels are within walking distance of the ballpark.
“It’s not unlikely that Max Downtown or Trumbull Kitchen would see business before or after the games,” Perna said. “Is it a make it or break it? I don’t know. The reality of it is, it’s a loss that’s not trivial. For the city, it’s a few dollars at a very, very challenging time in terms of revenue.”
Peter Gioia, an economist for the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, called the postponement “a big black eye” for Hartford.
“This was something that was going to be a showcase for the city, and now it’s dead in the water,” he said. “The impact is not minor. That doesn’t leave people feeling very positive.”
Gioia said the image of failure is as devastating as the financial toll.
“It’s just a bitter pill,” he said. “I mean, New Britain is playing baseball.”
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