Bombers are Gone!
Feb 19, 2009 20:01:06 GMT -5
Post by Doliboabros on Feb 19, 2009 20:01:06 GMT -5
Archdeacon: Downtown arena idea has plenty of charm
Could this arena help revive downtown Dayton?
By Tom Archdeacon
the Dayton Daily News
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Dr. Michael Ervin, the retired physician and businessman who co-chairs the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan — the evolving guide for redevelopment of the urban core — was talking about some of the homework his group has done.
"We had five meetings with 25 businesses — from the NCR Corporation and Premier Health Care to mom-and-pop entrepreneurs, and we asked them: 'Why would you keep your business here? Why would you move into the core region?'
"Turns out, they didn't want tax breaks or this or that so much as they wanted us, as a community, to create a sense of place. Some place their employees would want to live, work and play. They wanted an atmosphere of vibrancy."
While that gives birth to exciting thought, it also poses a major challenge.
Just a few days ago there was Forbes.com dropping the other shoe, ranking Dayton as the fifth-emptiest city in America. Last August, it rated us as one of its top 10 dying cities in the United States.
"We're going to prove them wrong," Ervin said. "Sometimes it's good to have a crisis because it makes you think what you need to do for the future."
And unlike some hot-air confabs of the past, the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan is drawing on business, city government and private citizens not just to come up with a cornucopia of intriguing ideas, but figuring out how to pay for them.
Along with affordable housing for young people and changing the function of some streets so they are pedestrian and bike friendly, there's Costa Papista's idea.
The Dayton Bombers owner suggested a multiuse recreation center/arena with two ice rinks — a main rink seating up to 5,500 and a practice rink — on the site of Dave Hall Plaza. It would connect with the Crowne Plaza Hotel and the Convention Center, and use existing parking garages.
While that idea is enticing if there's a plan to come up with the $30 million to build it (and the new Toledo hockey arena and its team's not-for-profit structure could be used as a model), there have been some naysayers just as there were when the Dayton Dragons idea first surfaced.
Some of the detraction is based in misconception. This wouldn't just be a Bombers playground.
"It would be a true community facility with year-round traffic, morning, noon and night," Papista said. "There could be youth hockey, high school, college, tournaments, adult leagues, figure skating, open skates, concerts and additional convention center space.
"The Bombers would be an excellent tenant that would use the arena some 40 events a year and sign a nice long-term contract to help assure it would pay for itself. And the full experience at our games would be enhanced.
"Coming downtown before a game, having dinner some place in the Oregon District or maybe with your kids at Spaghetti Warehouse, going out afterward, there would be traffic on the streets, a real buzz."
Sounds like some of that sense of place — that atmosphere of vibrancy — Ervin was talking about to revive Dayton.
www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/local/2009/02/19/ddn021909sparch.html
Could this arena help revive downtown Dayton?
By Tom Archdeacon
the Dayton Daily News
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Dr. Michael Ervin, the retired physician and businessman who co-chairs the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan — the evolving guide for redevelopment of the urban core — was talking about some of the homework his group has done.
"We had five meetings with 25 businesses — from the NCR Corporation and Premier Health Care to mom-and-pop entrepreneurs, and we asked them: 'Why would you keep your business here? Why would you move into the core region?'
"Turns out, they didn't want tax breaks or this or that so much as they wanted us, as a community, to create a sense of place. Some place their employees would want to live, work and play. They wanted an atmosphere of vibrancy."
While that gives birth to exciting thought, it also poses a major challenge.
Just a few days ago there was Forbes.com dropping the other shoe, ranking Dayton as the fifth-emptiest city in America. Last August, it rated us as one of its top 10 dying cities in the United States.
"We're going to prove them wrong," Ervin said. "Sometimes it's good to have a crisis because it makes you think what you need to do for the future."
And unlike some hot-air confabs of the past, the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan is drawing on business, city government and private citizens not just to come up with a cornucopia of intriguing ideas, but figuring out how to pay for them.
Along with affordable housing for young people and changing the function of some streets so they are pedestrian and bike friendly, there's Costa Papista's idea.
The Dayton Bombers owner suggested a multiuse recreation center/arena with two ice rinks — a main rink seating up to 5,500 and a practice rink — on the site of Dave Hall Plaza. It would connect with the Crowne Plaza Hotel and the Convention Center, and use existing parking garages.
While that idea is enticing if there's a plan to come up with the $30 million to build it (and the new Toledo hockey arena and its team's not-for-profit structure could be used as a model), there have been some naysayers just as there were when the Dayton Dragons idea first surfaced.
Some of the detraction is based in misconception. This wouldn't just be a Bombers playground.
"It would be a true community facility with year-round traffic, morning, noon and night," Papista said. "There could be youth hockey, high school, college, tournaments, adult leagues, figure skating, open skates, concerts and additional convention center space.
"The Bombers would be an excellent tenant that would use the arena some 40 events a year and sign a nice long-term contract to help assure it would pay for itself. And the full experience at our games would be enhanced.
"Coming downtown before a game, having dinner some place in the Oregon District or maybe with your kids at Spaghetti Warehouse, going out afterward, there would be traffic on the streets, a real buzz."
Sounds like some of that sense of place — that atmosphere of vibrancy — Ervin was talking about to revive Dayton.
www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/local/2009/02/19/ddn021909sparch.html