Here's a modest proposal to make it fly, Andrew:
The most important thing is the name: Not Nicollet Field. Not King Field
(wink, wink). Not even The Ballpark At Phillips.
No, it must be called Dog Park.
Every neighborhood has dog owners, but no one wants to cede park space for
their dogs. So we build a NEW park, a REAL park, a TURE multi-purpose
stadium - a playground for the millionaires some of the time, a playground
for the canines most of the time.
Think of the pr value - there goes Niland's arguments about subsidizing
millionaires...no one makes less than a dog! The puppy pals will lobby en
mass for a chance to enjoy massive green space - not some puny acre. There
will be massive job opportunities for unionized pooper scoopers (or police
jobs arresting dog owners without plastic baggies). You can help finance it
by charging dog owners $5 a shaggy head -- or let them buy a season ticket!
Another financing mechanism: because neighborhoods will fight over an
amenity that might actually serve residents, you probably nick East
Harriet-Farmstead taxpayers $10 or $20 each just to take the dog park
controversy off their hands!
Tired of the ballpark issue? Never! Especially not with creativity
inspiration like this...
David Brauer
King Field - Ward 10
Let's Go Mets!
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Andrew Dresdner
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 12:16 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: If the list is finally recovering from yet another bout of
If the list is finally recovering from yet another bout of "Ballpark
fatigue", I offer this up......
As a member of this Ballpark Committee, I bring to the list's attention the
article in today's Strib and a little backgrouond information from last
night.
http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=82756011
At last night's meeting Chuck Ballentine (Planning Director) dropped a bit
of a stunner. Whereas all previous conversations had the ballpark somewhere
downtown, he stated the City may be willing to consider a non-downtown site
for a ballpark. He said no specific sites are under active consideration.
He even said that one way to do this might be for the City will open it up
to the neighbohoods to bid on. Kind of a funny stance to take on something
that has apparently been run out of town three times in the past five years.
So, it begs the question, would any neighborhoods outside the downtown
actually embrace a ballpark. Could any neighbohoods actually conceive of a
ballpark as contributing to their neighborhood? If so, what would it look
like? Is this the stupidest idea of all?
It seems to me that a critical piece to all of this would of course be a
different mental model of what a ballpark is. Clearly it would not be the
Metrodome. It probably would not even be the so called "industry standard"
as seen in Cleveland, Seattle, Baltimore, Denver, blah, blah, blah. That is
the same old same old. Those could be considered "the Block E's of
Ballparks" or "mall-parks". Chuck said the point is for a "neighborhood
ballpark" to be what the neighbohood wants (thats a novel idea). No one
knows exctly what that means, but I think it would be something more in the
model of Chicago's Wrigley Field, or Boston's Fenway Park.
One other critical tidbit, we were told to operate under the assumption that
it would be privately financed.
Andrew Dresdner, AICP
Cuningham Group
(612) 379-5558
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
