In a remarkable culmination of more than two years of acrimonious, on-and-off negotiations, Hamilton County and the Cincinnati Reds announced a deal Wednesday to build a $235 million riverfront ballpark by 2003.
Suspended Reds President and CEO Marge Schott made a rare public statement at a news conference at Cinergy Field called to announce the deal, saying she was "so glad" the county and team finally reached an agreement.
"Being the oldest team in Major League Baseball, I feel the Reds should have the best," she said.
Cincinnati financier Carl Lindner stood by her side offering congratulations, praise and a gift from Tiffany & Co. to Mrs. Schott, whom he called "one of the nicest, toughest business ladies who really cares about the little people in this community."
Mr. Lindner then handed the blue box to Mrs. Schott, who opened it and showed off a gold star pendant.
"It's a star from another star. Thank you, honey," Mrs. Schott said, kissing Mr. Lindner, then adding, "Maybe we'll let him play tonight."
That warm relationship between Mr. Lindner and Mrs. Schott was instrumental in getting Mrs. Schott's blessing -- and signature -- on the deal struck by the county and team, County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus said after the news conference.
County officials said all through the stadium negotiations that they would not accept a stadium deal without Mrs. Schott's signature, despite repeated assurances from Major League Baseball that Managing Executive John Allen had the authority to make the deal on his own.
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"I hope that this will increase the support for the players as well as the for the city of Cincinnati"
-- JoAnn Rome-Session,
37, Springdale
"I prefer it on the river. Hopefully this will bring more fans to the ball games and more money for the city. "
-- Scott Haas,
39, Liberty, Ind.
"I don't think they should put the stadium at Broadway Commons. I've always come down to the river for the games, and they should keep them on the river."
-- Geoffrey Pinski,
18, Norwood
"I'm glad they settled this and they put it right where it belongs. All this has gone on long enough."
-- Walter Meirose,
77, Westwood
"Hopefully they will be able to spend the money to keep the better players. A new facility may help. If we are going to compete, we've got to put up the bucks."
-- Gary Moore,
46, Eaton, Ohio
A new ballpark "is what the Reds fans would like to see happen. It'll generate fan interest if they have a nice, clean stadium to visit."
-- Jack McKeon,
Reds manager
"The bottom line is that the fans want to see a winning team, new stadium or not."
-- Barry Larkin,
shortstop
"For whatever reason, new sports stadiums always brings excitement to a city, and I think it would happen here too."
-- Reggie Sanders,
outfielder
"It would be nice to get a new stadium here. It would bring revenue to the team, we'd be able to sign bigger free agents. But all that really matters is that it's a better atmosphere for the fans."
-- Brett Tomko,
pitcher
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"Obviously, she has friends in this community, and I think she would count Carl Lindner among them," Mr. Bedinghaus said of Mrs. Schott. "She trusts his business judgment. And I think she's always looking for folks to help her out, and he's a significant person."
Mr. Lindner is a limited partner of the Reds. The Gannett Co., which owns The Cincinnati Enquirer, also is a limited partner. Mr. Allen said Mrs. Schott struggled with the siting decision as all those in the Reds organization had. The team finally decided that a riverfront ballpark offered it the best chance at long-term financial health in Cincinnati, he said.
Mr. Allen credited Mrs. Schott's lawyer, Robert Martin, for helping guide her to a decision. Mr. Martin was with Mrs. Schott Tuesday night when she signed the deal.
Mr. Allen also said a recent trip to the top of an unnamed Cincinnati skyscraper helped Mrs. Schott and him make a decision.
"Mrs. Schott has always, from day one, been pro-river. It was just finding a place on the river to put it," Mr. Allen said. "To actually look down and have engineers and architects lead us through it . . . that's when it began to all fit together."
Because of her suspension, Mrs. Schott has been prohibited from talking publicly about the stadium. When a Reds spokesman told reporters she couldn't answer questions beyond the statement that had been approved by the league, she quipped, "It's called freedom of speech."
National League President Leonard Coleman praised the deal as one that will mean a "bright future" for its "senior franchise," Reds fans and the community.
But even as top county, team and business leaders celebrated the announcement as a win for the community and the Reds, backers of the rival Broadway Commons site denounced it as a sham.
Restaurant owner Jim Tarbell, the most vocal supporter of Broadway Commons, said he doesn't think Mr. Bedinghaus or County Commission President Tom Neyer Jr. could possibly believe a stadium can be built on the so-called Wedge site.
"They're smart enough to know that The Wedge can't work," said Mr. Tarbell, who was sworn in as a Cincinnati City Council member Wednesday.
The Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, announced Wednesday has an escape clause that either the county or the team can use if the riverfront site is found to be unworkable or too expensive. Mr. Bedinghaus and Mr. Neyer insisted they don't expect to use that clause.
WHAT'S NEXT
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 Within 60 days, the county will hire an architect and construction manager to study the difficulties of locating the stadium in the area known as The Wedge.
The study will include assessing team and county needs, devising a construction schedule and establishing a preliminary budget.
Either the team or the county may decide that the site won't work or is too expensive and call off the agreement.
If they go ahead with the site, as they expect, it'll take about one year for design of the stadium. Demolition of part of Cinergy Field may start in that year.
Construction of a new stadium won't start until Fort Washington Way is done in 2000.
Construction will take about two years.
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"We don't expect that we're going to run into any problems that will not allow us to build this stadium," Mr. Bedinghaus said. Mr. Allen thought a major step in the negotiations came in March, when the Reds no longer requested $33.6 million in guaranteed revenues during the middle years of a 30-year lease and late fees of at least $300,000 per game if the new ballpark wasn't finished by the 2002 season.
Those were two elements that made the Bengals' deal so attractive, but Mr. Allen said, "I had to put the blinders on and get the best baseball deal we could for this organization for the long term." Mr. Allen estimated that a new stadium could mean as much as $18 million to $24 million in new revenue for the Reds.
"This will help get us on the same playing field, but if salaries continue to escalate out of hand . . . we're not going to be on the same level with Baltimore and the (New York) Yankees," Mr. Allen said. A national expert believes the Reds have one of the best deals in Major League Baseball. But while extolling the deal, Paul Anderson of Marquette University's National Sports Law Institute warned: "It's a very speculative document. There are a lot of "time to times' that have to be worked out before there's a lease."
Mr. Bedinghaus said the agreement is purposefully speculative, adding that the county's MOU with the Bengals was speculative, too.
"This was the threshold we needed to get to, to allow us to spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars on architects and construction managers to continue this process," he said. But there never were questions about whether a football stadium would fit on the Bengals site.
The Reds stadium, however, poses construction challenges the county has acknowledged time and time again.
Before work can even begin on the stadium, the city's massive overhaul of Fort Washington Way must be finished. The new ballpark would consume some of the same land that Cinergy Field now occupies. That means part of Cinergy Field's parking deck and seating bowl likely will have to be demolished while the team continues to play there so the county can finish the new stadium by 2003.
The $235 million figure in the stadium agreement is bound to be higher by the time a ballpark is built. For one thing, the figure represents 1998 dollars, which will be adjusted for inflation. It also doesn't include the cost of land, parking, financing and any costs due to the complications of The Wedge.
Once such costs were added to the Bengals' $280 million stadium deal, the price tag was $400.3 million.
Commissioner John Dowlin, the lone Broadway backer on the board of commissioners, didn't attend the news conference late Wednesday afternoon but raised questions about the deal at a meeting earlier in the day.
For example, the county guarantees the team will earn at least $250,000 a year from the rental of private suites starting this year until the new stadium is finished.
Mr. Dowlin questioned why the county should make such guarantees if the Reds weren't going to field a winning team. He also raised questions about who owns the land that makes up the Wedge site.
Mr. Bedinghaus said most of the site already is owned by the county, but acknowledged that some of the land is owned by the city of Cincinnati and some could be owned by the state.
City Councilman Todd Portune has suggested a city council majority could vote to withhold that land to force commissioners to build at Broadway and Reading Road instead.
Mr. Portune and Mr. Tarbell also are leading a push to collect 26,800 valid signatures of Hamilton County voters by July 24 to put an initiative on the November ballot that would create a county charter and give voters a chance to cast a ballot for Broadway.
Mr. Neyer said county officials certainly didn't expect immediate acceptance from Broadway supporters.
"There would have been disappointed individuals no matter which site was selected," Mr. Neyer said.
Appointed County Commissioner Tom Neyer addresses the crowd at Wednesday's announcement.
(Craig Ruttle photo)
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Marilyn Hyland, the Democrat hoping to unseat Mr. Neyer in November, urged commissioners not to approve an MOU until people have a chance to vote.
But Mr. Bedinghaus said commissioners plan to vote next week, and it only takes Mr. Bedinghaus and Mr. Neyer to seal the deal.
"Our job now is to show everyone that the decision we made is a good decision," he said.
The origin of the deal announced Wednesday goes back to 1995, when the Bengals and Reds each said they needed a new stadium to compete financially in their sports.
Hamilton County voters authorized a sales tax increase in March 1996 to pay for the new stadiums. The Bengals moved quickly to strike a deal, while talks with the Reds were erratic.
The Bengals broke ground in April on Paul Brown Stadium, at the western edge of the riverfront, and will be ready to play in the 2000 football season.
