Loading ...Archive for Press
Eastern League “closing in” on announcement of Richmond’s new baseball franchise
Posted by: | CommentsBy John O’Connor
Originally published on TimesDispatch.com, full article found here.
Published: July 21, 2009
Behind-the-scenes work apparently has already started as The Diamond readies for Richmond’s next professional baseball team. Sources said it will be the Class AA franchise now based in Connecticut.
Those involved with the relocation process have been told by Minor League Baseball and the Eastern League not to comment publicly on the move until it is formally announced, Eastern League President Joe McEacharn said.
Renovation of The Diamond’s executive offices will be a priority following an announcement of franchise relocation for next season. McEacharn said yesterday that “the people who we anticipate coming down there are actively involved” in making arrangements for computer service, phone service and other business necessities in The Diamond’s front office.
“It is my understanding that there have been some contacts relative to doing some things, carpet, [phone and computer] hook-ups and things like that,” said Mike Berry, general manager of the Richmond Metropolitan Authority, which owns and operates The Diamond.
McEacharn reiterated that Richmond’s new franchise and its ownership group will be announced by Aug. 1. He chose not to reveal the franchise or ownership team yesterday and said the announcement is “unlikely” this week. “We’re closing in,” McEacharn said. “We’re dotting I’s and crossing T’s and all that stuff. We don’t have anything to announce yet, but we continue to work toward that.”
The Connecticut franchise will move to Richmond with Lou DiBella remaining as managing partner, said sources, and with a management team involving Chuck Domino, president of the Class AA Reading franchise (Philadelphia Phillies) and the Class AAA Lehigh Valley franchise (Philadelphia Phillies). Domino, who has worked in professional baseball for 27 years, was Reading’s general manager 1988-2006. He won several national awards for franchise management.
Connecticut has been an Eastern League member since 1995. The franchise is contractually bound to be the San Francisco Giants’ Class AA affiliate through next season. A local ownership group, Richmond Baseball Club LC, in May failed to meet the purchase price of $15.4 million for that franchise.
“We will wait for Minor League Baseball to assign the region a team, and then that team will sit down with the RMA and enter into a lease agreement,” said James L. Jenkins, chairman of the RMA’s board of directors. “Then the process will go forward with an initial refurbishing of The Diamond.”
The Diamond’s refurbishment would be an upgrade to make it usable for at least the next two seasons. A long-term ballpark solution has not yet been determined. Peter Kirk’s Opening Day Partners submitted a $28 million plan for a transformation of The Diamond in early June to city and county officials. Kirk yesterday said he has not heard from those officials.
McEacharn said that Minor League Baseball and the Eastern League have agreed on the franchise to be relocated to Richmond but “there are always a whole bunch of legal [issues] to work through . . . We have a plan and we’re trying to finalize that plan. And we always have contingencies.”
Connecticut was one of a few Eastern League franchises that expressed an interest in relocating to Richmond, sources said. Jenkins said seven groups toured The Diamond. That number includes representatives of franchises that were interested in relocation as well as members of potential ownership groups.
Diradour still swinging for baseball at The Diamond
Posted by: | CommentsBy John O’Connor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, originally published HERE.
Published: July 3, 2009
A man approached Charlie Diradour and shook his hand outside The Diamond yesterday.
“Keep up the good work, Charlie,” he said.
Replied Diradour: “Thank you very much for coming out.”
Diradour, who arranged the appearance to announce the launching of his revamped Web site, looked as if a politician were the centerpiece. Diradour is not a politician — at least not yet.
Diradour, 45, a graduate of Trinity Episcopal School and Virginia Commonwealth University, began a public crusade to keep baseball on the Boulevard soon after the Shockoe Center proposal was released in October. Yesterday, he reiterated his belief that a transformation of The Diamond is the most sensible fiscal measure.
In so doing, Diradour re-raised the question that surfaces each time he makes the pitch: What is this guy’s motivation?
Diradour owns and operates a local real estate development firm that mainly deals with properties in Richmond’s Fan District. “I want this known far and wide,” he said. “I have no interests along the Boulevard corridor.”
He said he endorses the Boulevard location because a ballpark is already there with good access and parking.
Diradour said he opposed the Shockoe Center proposal “to make sure the citizens’ tax dollars weren’t mishandled.” That proposal was withdrawn last week. Yesterday, he emphasized the need for Richmond-area residents, regardless of ballpark-site preference, to embrace the Double-A franchise set to come next season.
“This is not some self-aggrandizement setting up for doing anything,” Diradour said. “This is pure. And people have responded to it.”
Diradour says he was in a barbershop a few days ago, and a couple of men there praised his support of The Diamond. They told him he needed to take his common-sense approach into government.
“Do I? Or am I more effective doing it this way?” Diradour said. “That’s a question I’m wrestling with right now.”
Yesterday, Diradour beseeched the city administration to at least meet with Peter Kirk, the chairman of Opening Day Partners, who early last month submitted to area officials a $28 million proposal to transform The Diamond.
Kirk’s plan would remove the roof and the upper deck, expand the lower bowl, add a berm, a play area (with bumper boats, a carousel and skateboard park) and a conference center. New retail would be built adjacent to the stadium.
Kirk has not heard from area leaders about setting up a meeting.
“Economically at this time in this country’s history, it makes even more sense now to use adaptive reuse technologies to bring this site back to life,” Diradour said of The Diamond.
Diradour was a supporter of the unsuccessful campaign for Richmond mayor by William J. Pantele, a former City Council president. Yesterday, Pantele stopped by The Diamond to support Diradour.
Pantele called Kirk “brilliant” and said attendance dropped during the Richmond Braves’ final few years not because of the stadium or its location, but because of “poor management of the facility and a lack of promotion.”
WTVR CBS6 • Diradour announces website
Posted by: | CommentsOriginally aired on WTVR CBS6, July 2nd, 2009.
(The random clicks experienced during this video are in the source video by WTVR6)
http://friendsofrichmondbaseball.com/wp-content/video/WTVR-CDiradour-FORB.flv
Baseball debate turning into a full season of speculation
Posted by: | CommentsOriginally printed HERE on richmondbizsense.com, on July 2, 2009 by Al Harris
As soon as it seems dead in the water, the baseball debate in Richmond keeps coming back.
Charlie Diradour extended his hand in peace today to those in the opposite dugout at a news conference he called.
Connecticut, the giant Indian sculpture, looked down over the scene, a thick layer of pollen dusted over its head and shoulders.
“The arguments are over with,” Diradour said to a small audience of reporters gathered in front of the Diamond this morning.
Diradour was an outspoken critic of the downtown stadium plan recently dropped by Highwoods Properties. He founded his own website, BaseballontheBoulevard.com, as an advocacy platform for bringing baseball back to the stadium abandoned last year by the Richmond Braves. Diradour also owns a development company, Lion’s Paw Development,BizRi that is active primarily in the Fan District.
Today he announced he was shutting down the Baseball on the Boulevard site and launching Friends of Richmond Baseball to take its place.
“What I want to do is bring both universes together,” Diradour said.
He invited corporations to post their logo on the site to show support of bringing an Eastern League team to Richmond. He also announced he was shutting down his Facebook group and replacing it with Friends of Richmond Baseball, inviting supporters of the Shockoe Center plan to join as well.
Diradour made it clear he still was personally in support of redeveloping the Diamond, in particular a plan by Maryland-based Opening Day Partners owned by Peter Kirk for $28 million. The company has developed as many as 14 ballparks along the East Coast.
“Peter Kirk sent a plan to the administration,” Diradour said. “I call on the administration to at least call Peter Kirk.”
But that plan could have some competition.
The Times-Dispatch reported today that the Reynolds Packaging Group is pitching their property on the south bank of the James River, directly across from downtown, as a possible site for a new stadium.
The T-D reports that a Reynolds executive “pointed out the property” to Mayor Dwight Jones and other city leaders as a good location for a stadium. Real estate firm CB Richard Ellis is marketing the sale of the 18-acre property.
City officials said no one has proposed to them an official plan to build a stadium at that location.
NBC12 NEWS • Thursday, July 2nd
Posted by: | CommentsRTD • Baseball advocate encourages unity
Posted by: | Comments
Published: July 2, 2009 with full text and comments HERE.By Staff Reports
Charlie Diradour today held a news conference at The Diamond to encourage unity and reception of the new minor league baseball team headed for Richmond.
“We want this to be the most welcoming city that a minor league franchise has ever seen,” Diradour said.
Diradour, owner and operator of Lion’s Paw Development Company, which owns and manages real estate, also called on the city to contact Opening Day Partners about its plan to transform The Diamond.
Diradour also announced the launch of his new Web site, FriendsofRichmondBaseball.com, which encourages fans to get excited about professional baseball in Richmond.
RTD • Ballpark on south bank of James pitched
Posted by: | CommentsBy Michael Martz
Originally Published: July 2, 2009 in the Richmond Times-Dispatch HERE
The area in blue is the proposed site on the southside in the Manchester area.
The owner of almost 18 acres of prime property on the south bank of the James River is pitching Manchester as the place to play ball in Richmond.
Reynolds Packaging Group has mentioned to city officials informally the possibility of a minor-league baseball stadium in South Richmond. The stadium site would be part of a 17.5-acre property between the Manchester and 14th Street bridges, with a clear view of the river and downtown skyline.
“How good would a ballpark look there?” asked John T. “Trib” Sutton III, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis of Virginia, a real estate brokerage that is handling the sale of the property for Reynolds.
Margaret A. Bowen, vice president of human resources at Reynolds, said she pointed out the property and its potential as a stadium site to Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones and key aides David Hicks and Suzette P. Denslow while at an unrelated event last week overlooking the river and the property from the 24th floor of the SunTrust building in downtown Richmond. Bowen also mentioned her experience in Pittsburgh, where the Pirates’ major-league franchise opened PNC Park in 2001 with a view of the city skyline and Allegheny River.
The event, introducing then-prospective Chief Administrative Officer Byron C. Marshall to the local business community, occurred the day before the collapse of a proposal to build a stadium in Shockoe Bottom.
However, Richmond officials say they didn’t consider the casual conversation a pitch for a new stadium site and that they don’t have any formal proposal to consider.
“Unequivocally, we are not considering any proposal for a baseball stadium on that site,” Tammy D. Hawley, the mayor’s press secretary, said yesterday.
CB Richard Ellis is making its first pitch for potential buyers of the South Side property next week. The brokerage also is handling the sale of another Reynolds site, a key property on the downtown Canal Walk.
CB Richard Ellis representatives say they already have shown the 6-acre property on the north side of the James to 12 potential buyers and have scheduled private tours for an additional 10. Reynolds will ask for proposals from as many as 30 potential buyers later this month and could select a purchaser by Labor Day.
Reynolds currently packages and distributes Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil in a series of buildings that lie over part of the Kanawha Canal and abut the Haxall Canal, which extends up the river to Brown’s Island. The complex stands between the two sections of the Canal Walk that Richmond long has sought to develop as a tourist attraction.
“It’s central to completing that vision,” said Robert A. Dirom III, first vice president at CBRE.
Bowen is a member of the board of directors of Venture Richmond, a nonprofit organization that advocates riverfront development and operates a canal boat on a portion of the Kanawha that currently is open. She hopes the development of the property will allow people to walk the two historic canals without detouring around the industrial property, as they do now.
“The two canals will never physically meet — they never did before,” she said. “It creates a connected walkway.”
Reynolds Packaging, now a division of Rank Group, plans to close its operations on both sides of the river this year. The closings, currently envisioned in the quarter that began yesterday, will cost about 490 employees their jobs.
The company, through CBRE, has been talking to city officials and other interested economic development organizations about how to develop the properties in ways that are consistent with the new Downtown Master Plan, which for the first time encompasses the Manchester area of South Richmond.
Hawley said the city doesn’t generally comment on impending real estate transactions, but she acknowledged the importance of the master plan in considering potential redevelopment of the property on the north side of the river along the Canal Walk.
Charlie Diradour, at the Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Reynolds always had been a good corporate citizen,” she said. “I would anticipate no less than some eye toward the [city's] best interests and best use of the space.”
Charlie Diradour, a Fan District businessman who advocates keeping baseball on North Boulevard, said yesterday that he wasn’t surprised that the South Richmond property, formerly owned by Alcoa Corp., is being mentioned for a stadium site.
“I have been informed all along the way that if the Bottom site didn’t work out, the Alcoa site would be the next target for a baseball stadium,” he said yesterday.
Diradour, who plans to announce a new Web site called Friends of Richmond Baseball at a press conference today in front of The Diamond, said the real issue is who would buy the property and who would pay to build a stadium there.
“The question always has been a question of money,” he said. “Who is going to build the stadium?”
Press Conference • The Site Launches
Posted by: | Comments| July 2, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 12:00 pm |
The purpose of the conference will be to announce the rollout of a new website. Friends of Richmond Baseball (friendsofrichmondbaseball.com) is part of Charlie Diradour’s fiscally responsible effort to bring baseball back to Richmond, VA.
Charlie Diradour
The opening statement will also include the announcement of a new Facebook page that asks members of the Facebook community to join the support structure for a new team. The thrust of his statement will be to create a real and tangible base of support for our new team before they arrive.
Diradour will also comment on the ongoing process as regards team choice and The Eastern League’s dedication to the Richmond Metropolitan market. Discussion regarding the Opening Day Partners proposal will also take place.
For more information call Charlie Diradour at 804-239-8180, or email Charlie@lionspawdevelopment.com
Overhaul of Diamond is last plan standing
Posted by: | CommentsBy Will Jones
Published: June 24, 2009 on timesdispatch.com, with original article HERE.
A plan for baseball in Shockoe Bottom has struck out again. With the Shockoe Center dead, a proposal to transform The Diamond and bring baseball back to Richmond is now the only game in town.
Developers of the proposed Shockoe Center project announced yesterday that they’re walking away from the project, as well as a proposal for development along the Boulevard.
“We have carried these projects as far as our collaborative team can under the present circumstances,” the group led by Highwoods Properties said in a statement.
The developers lamented that their efforts to revitalize Shockoe Bottom and the Boulevard with about $800 million of development were “overshadowed by debate over the ballpark.”
The collapse of Shockoe Center leaves Opening Day Partners’ $28 million plan to overhaul The Diamond as the only publicly released plan for a ballpark in Richmond.
On Shockoe Center’s demise, the Highwoods developers added that the “good faith” but ultimately unsuccessful effort by a group of local investors to buy a baseball team had “fundamentally altered the way minor-league baseball will now return to Richmond. The city will need to negotiate directly with any new team owner on such issues as location, timing and financing of a new ballpark.”
Minor League Baseball and the Eastern League are in the process of identifying a franchise to relocate to Richmond with current or new ownership. An Aug. 1 deadline to clarify those issues is in effect.
In a statement yesterday, Mayor Dwight C. Jones praised the Shockoe Center developers for their vision, and he underscored their conclusion that ballpark financing “is just not possible in today’s revenue bond market.”
“At this time, the situation affords us an avenue to fully re-engage our regional partners in the discussion of the direction we, as a region, wish to move in,” Jones said. “We know there is excitement about Richmond as a baseball town and we have a commitment from the Eastern League that there will be a team on the ground in The Diamond next spring.
“What we must do now is to determine what our long-term solution will be and the best way to go about accomplishing that goal.”
The $318 million Shockoe Center project was announced last October after then-Mayor L. Douglas Wilder selected Highwoods Properties as the master developer for city property in Shockoe Bottom and on the Boulevard following a request for proposals. Wilder had nixed another private proposal for baseball in Shockoe Bottom earlier in his term.
Jones took office in January and proceeded cautiously on Shockoe Center, initially persuading the developers to push back a deadline for preliminary city approval from March 1 to Aug. 1.
The idea of baseball in the Bottom had its supporters as well as its critics, many of whom argued that Richmond’s plans for baseball should focus on refurbishing or replacing The Diamond, the longtime home of the Richmond Braves’ home on the Boulevard.
In March, the Jones administration hired consultants to review the financial viability of Shockoe Center, specifically its plan to finance the $60 million ballpark without city backing using tax revenues generated by restaurants, residences and other new private development around it.
However, the consultants, led by Davenport & Co., concluded that the project would be “highly feasible” with city credit support and “highly unlikely” to be financed otherwise.
In yesterday’s statement, the developers said the study “validated our fundamental premise” for ballpark financing and acknowledged that the plan “is not possible in today’s revenue bond market.” The developers emphasized that they had never intended to pursue financing in the current market.
“We are convinced, however, that the coming economic recovery would allow revenue bonds to be sold without the city’s general obligation backing, possibly as early as next year,” the statement said. “We have always maintained that the city’s debt capacity should be used for public projects like schools, streets and a new jail, and not for a new ballpark.”
Last month, Jones called on the Shockoe Center developers and other groups to resolve differences between their plans for Shockoe Bottom. Those projects also include high-speed rail, the city’s slave trail and a bus-transfer center in the train shed at Main Street Station.
In their statement, the Shockoe Center developers said they had reached a preliminary agreement allowing their project and the bus transfer center to co-exist. They also noted that they had dropped Shockoe Center’s $90 million third phase to accommodate the slave-trail project and related activities to commemorate the area’s importance in black history.
“We believe heritage is compatible with baseball, high-speed rail and some level of bus transit,” the Shockoe Center developers said. “However, all of these issues require further research, and important decisions must be made by all stakeholders before the private sector can be truly effective in the process.”
- Will Jones
Thanks for the memories – GO FLYING SQUIRRELS!!
Posted by: Scott Dickens | Comments (0)