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BY SUSAN ERLER
serler@nwitimes.com
219.462.5151 | Wednesday, May 24, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
GARY | They built it, and baseball fans did come to The Steel Yard in downtown Gary.
Attendance numbers climbed slowly but steadily. Last year, the $45 million ballpark drew 150,000 fans.
But the bars, restaurants and retailers the ballpark's promoters hoped would follow have not -- at least not by this week's start of the stadium's fourth baseball season.
And few of those around when The Steel Yard was built are willing, or able, to say why.
Municipalities around the country are learning sports stadiums often fail to lure economic development no matter where they are, a local economist said.
Then-Mayor Scott King said this week that since leaving office earlier this year he hadn't kept close tabs on developments surrounding the 6,139-seat ballpark, which opened in 2003 at Fifth Avenue and Pennsylvania Street, near the heart of downtown.
Of greater interest, King said, are the attendance numbers, which have increased each of the past two seasons. "The most interesting demographic is the number of nonresidents who come in for the baseball games," King said.
With little in the way of pre- or postgame attractions near the ballpark, most don't stick around for long.
One nearby restaurant, a Bennigan's built alongside the ballpark as part of the original construction, is doing well, owner Larry Briski, said.
"We've been in Gary now for almost three years," Briski said. "For the most part, we're pleased with where it is. We have a good lunch crowd, and we attract an after-work set and that's been very popular."
Business gets better when the RailCats play, Briski added.
But success by Bennigan's does not necessarily qualify as economic development, said Don Coffin, an Indiana University Northwest economics professor and observer of the Northwest Indiana economy.
"Is that new activity or activity directed from other places?" Coffin said.
If people working downtown had been going somewhere else for lunch but switched to Bennigan's, "that's not new economic development activity," Coffin said.
It's a similar story surrounding other sports arenas, Coffin said.
"One of the problems with most sports activities is that much of the activity tends to be just redirected from other places, particularly if the sports facility is highly dependent on the local community to generate its activity," Coffin said.
In The Steel Yard's case, "Not many people take vacations to Northwest Indiana to see the RailCats play," Coffin said.
Gary's high crime rate in some recent years figures into the economic development equation.
"One of the perceived problems is the safety issue, and if that's an issue, people are not going to walk the two or three blocks to a bar or a night club," Coffin said. "They're going to drive down, park, go to the game, and then get in the car and go home."
But few ballparks anywhere manage to keep fans around the area for long, Coffin said.
"I don't care where it is, whether it's 40,000 fans at Wrigley Field. Most are going to go home afterward."
Public officials increasingly are reluctant to buy into sports arenas as economic development spurs, Coffin said.
"It's getting harder and harder to persuade people that's true."
In the long run, The Steel Yard could still pay off in terms of attracting economic development, said Vince Galbiati, president and CEO of the Northwest Indiana Forum.
"Where there are other ballparks in major metropolitan areas, it has taken time for economic development to build and to follow," Galbiati said.
"There's so much opportunity that exists, right across the street," he said. "The more comfort people have in coming to the park, the more interest there will be."
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