SPORTS Lessons from All Over

THIS IS THE collective fantasy of Ron Kirk, Ross Perot Jr., David McDavid and Tom Hicks: A new arena sprouts downtown. Almost like magic, the surrounding area is bustling with new restaurants and entertainment opportunities. People like what they see so much, they come back even when the arena is dark. This, in turn, creates more retail, business relocation and new housing.

Meanwhile, flush from the money the luxury-box-laden new arena is bringing in, the Mavericks and Stars spare no expense. High-priced free agents are signed. The young nuclei are secured until the year 2525. Soon, championship banners ate raised. This brings yet more people to the arena, more people to oooooh and ahhhhh about a center city in renaissance, more national publicity about a wonderful redevelopment program.

This may be a fantasy in Dallas right now, but it’s being realized in Cleveland, Phoenix, Denver, Boston, Baltimore and many other cities that have recently opened modern palaces of sport to help resurrect downtowns where they once all but rolled up the streets at 6 p.m. Just listen to Chris Warren, Cleveland’s director of economic development, describing the impact of 3-yeat-old Jacobs Field and 2-year-old Gund Arena.

“I think the impact in Cleveland has been to articulate in no uncertain terms to the world and, particularly, to Northeast Ohio, that Cleveland as the mother city still counts economically, is still the center of commerce and sets a climate for our city with regard to its ability to compete for investment, population and business.”

The facts and figures confirm Warren’s gushing-the city has seen its first non-subsidized downtown hotels in 40 years being built and 1,800 new housing units blossoming close to die homes of the Indians and the Cavaliers.

Likewise in Denver, where the Colorado Rockies’ new Coors Field helped generate more sales tax for downtown businesses in the first half of 1995 than is the previous three years combined. And in Phoenix, 30 new restaurants and other retail establishments opened within a year after the Phoenix Suns sunk their first basket at America West Arena in 1992.

Phoenix business development administrator Brian Kearney said America West Arena-and the new Bank One Ballpark being constructed a block away-was the centerpiece of an effort “to make downtown a 24-hour type of place or at least an 18-hour type of place.” A new symphony hall, convention center and theaters also are part of the mix.

“Downtown Phoenix, until about five years ago, had not been a very popular place at all unless you worked downtown, and even then nobody bragged about it,” says Ray J. Artigue, the Suns’ vice president for communications. “Today, it is one of the thriving, exciting, popular areas of the community.”

The same is true in Denver. The Coors Field area downtown once was filled with old, abandoned warehouse facilities, says Max Wiley, director of the mayor’s office of economic development. “The ballpark’s presence enhanced die area’s desirability.”

Anne Job, senior director of the Downtown Denver Partnership, says. “Four million people attend games, and they come back in the off-season. That’s what we want. People will go anywhere to go to a baseball game. We need them to come back here to do other things.” They’re coming: The original estimate of $90.5 million in additional sales generated by Coors Field was amended to $194 million, “and people still chink that’s a very conservative number,” Job says. Now the city is negotiating with the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche to build Pepsi Center, which would replace McNichols Arena, a 1975 facility many compare to Reunion Arena. Job estimates an economic impact similar to that of Coors Field. And Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards is the focal point of the resurrection of that city’s harborfront.

The key, however, is to build a facility that is fully integrated with the surrounding downtown. Though Reunion is located in downtown Dallas, it is not a “downtown arena” in the manner of America West or Gund. Reunion is bordered by two freeways, railroad tracks and die Hyatt Regency, which itself is cut off from the rest of downtown. It’s a good half-mile or more to die West End, and it is not directly on DARTs light-rail line. “I’ve seen people say they’re building downtown stadiums, but this is smack in the middle of downtown,” Denver’s Job says of Coors Field. “There’s no big streets to cross, no bridge to have to go over.” She laments that the proposed Pepsi Center site requires people to cross one four-lane boulevard to get to restaurants and stores.

As for arena parking, die less the better for downtown revitalization. The 19,000-seat America West Arena has but 900 adjacent spaces, meaning “we have thousands and thousands of people walking the streets of downtown before and after the game,” says the city’s Kearney. Reunion Arena, in comparison, has 6,400 parking spaces-400 more than Coors Field, which has almost three times the seating capacity- meaning most spectators at Reunion simply walk out of the arena, get into their cars and see downtown only in their rearview mirrors,

The bottom line: New sports facilities help make downtown, as Cleveland’s Warren says, “a place where people gather, enjoy things together, engage in commerce and respect their differences as they engage in common pursuits. That’s almost a definition of supporting a ball team.” And not a bad description of the way downtowns once were-and can be again.