The Atlanta Braves took the first concrete step Wednesday toward outlining the ambitious retail and entertainment district that the team says will surround its new $672 million stadium and potentially position the franchise as a big-scale developer.
The team’s $400 million plan for the 45-acre district outside the Cobb County stadium underscores the franchise’s desire to control and develop an area that could buzz with activity even when the ballpark is empty. But it also poses new risks for an organization whose focus has been centered on building a ballclub, not enticing bars and stores to surround a stadium.
“No one in the country has ever built a brand-new sports facility and created this kind of development at the same time,” Braves Executive Vice President Mike Plant told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We believe this is the best example of a private-public partnership. And this has been a key part of this from Day One.”
The team plans to seek developers and others to help shoulder the cost of the project, and it emphasizes that no public funds will go into the mixed-use district. But Plant and Executive Vice President Derek Schiller said the franchise also could move forward without a partner, a move that would carry more risk — and potentially more reward.
“It’s admirable that the team is trying to do this, but it will require an array of expertise that the Braves don’t have,” said Bruce Seaman, a Georgia State University economics professor who specializes in public finance. “These projects are complicated to pull off, both on the development side and the financing.”
The plans are still fluid and preliminary, but Plant and Schiller said team officials have been working on them for months. They include a pedestrian boulevard lined with shops, restaurants and bars that leads to a stadium gate behind home plate. A ribbon of trees and green space would surround the complex, and an amphitheater geared toward smaller events would be at the center.
The first phase of the project, timed to open along with the stadium ahead of the 2017 season, would largely consist of stores, restaurants and potentially a hotel. Team executives envision up to 1 million square feet in the initial development — roughly the size of a typical mall.
A second phase would include apartments, condos or other residential options, as well as office space. The term “live-work-play” was mentioned several times, and the executives said the development was likely to be stacked vertically rather than spread out across the fringes of the complex.
Dallas-based architecture firm HKS, which has been working with the Braves on the stadium project, prepared the renderings released Wednesday of the proposed development.
“This continues to evolve,” Schiller said. “This is by no means a finished product, and it won’t be literally until we put a shovel to the ground.”
Renderings of the stadium itself were not yet available.
According to preliminary plans, about 2,000 parking spaces would be built under the stadium, along with roughly 4,000 other spaces on the 60-acre property, which includes 15 acres for the stadium site. A total of 30,000 parking spaces would be located within two miles, and the team envisions a pedestrian bridge across I-285 linking to the Cobb Galleria and other venues. Some real estate analysts were optimistic about the team’s attempt to harness a built-in audience of tens of thousands of fans for 81 home games each season.
“You’ve got a well-capitalized organization that is already in the business of entertainment now trying to create a development around that concept,” said Ken Ashley, the executive director of Cushman Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm. “I think they could run the bases with this idea.”
The private financing of the entertainment complex is in contrast to the team’s plan for public financing to help build the stadium. The stadium plan calls for the Cobb County government to spend $300 million on the facility through bonds to be repaid with reallocated property tax revenue, existing hotel-motel taxes, a rental-car tax in unincorporated areas of the county and a tax increase for businesses and rental housing in the Cumberland Mall area.
Cobb County commissioners are set to vote on the stadium plan at a meeting Tuesday, and the political back-and-forth is already raging. Tea party activists say taxpayer dollars shouldn’t back the team’s plans, while business boosters talk of the benefits for Cobb’s schools and parkland.
Seaman, the Georgia State professor, said the Braves face more hurdles. But he praised the team for taking steps toward integrating the stadium within the neighborhood. In a nod to the team’s current home at Turner Field, he said: “One thing that never works is simply surrounding a large facility with parking lots.”
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