May Worcester's big baseball gamble pay off
Rendition of Polar Park
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
The new, $159.5 million Polar Park project, in Worcester, looks lovely, as well it should at that price. Worcester, through borrowing, is paying $88.2 million, the Worcester Red Sox $60.6 million and the state and Feds $10.7 million, at least according to a Feb. 4 Worcester Business Journal report.
Will Polar Park pay for itself in bigger local business revenues and payrolls and such related public benefits as more municipal-property-tax revenue? Generally, publicly financed sports stadiums don’t pay for themselves, at least in measurable monetary benefits for the taxpayers, though of course they can be very lucrative for the team owners. And there can be psychic benefits for some locals from the pride in having a (hopefully) successful team to rally around and an often jolly place to gather.
In the case of Worcester, I have some doubts on whether, after a year or two of people drawn by curiosity to the new ballpark, the WooSox can lure the number of long-term gamegoers they hope for.
While Worcester was very narrowly the second-largest city in New England in the 2010 Census, with 181,045 people, compared to Providence’s 178,042, its metro area had only 923,672 people, compared to Greater Providence’s 1.6 million. Providence proper’s area is only 20.58 square miles, compared with Worcester’ 38.41.
Those numbers seemingly would have made it much more sensical to keep the Pawtucket Red Sox going, even with less than the substantial taxpayer help that the organization had been offered in the Ocean State. Further, Providence/Pawtucket is on the main street of the East Coast and Worcester is more off to the side.
Well, que sera, sera. Now that Polar Park is up, I wish the WooSox all the best and plan a trip there soon to check it out. While I have little interest in such things as baseball statistics (real baseball fans are obsessed with such data) and don’t much follow the ups-and-downs of current stars, I do love the setting, sights and sounds of baseball: The slope of the stands; the smell of very green grass and of hot dogs and beer; the cheers (and boos); the crack of the ball against the bat; the tacky organ music; the alternations of relative immobility and explosive activity; the manic announcers, and the seventh inning stretch.
As for folks living in and around Worcester, perhaps it will become one of those “third places,’’ such as restaurants, coffee shops, gyms and even some bookstores, where locals go to hang out with their neighbors on a regular basis. We may know within a couple of years. Maybe it will become as beloved a local institution (for many) as Clark University, the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Worcester Museum of Art, and as the PawSox were for so many years in Greater Providence. Maybe.