BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[broadway commons]](/editions/1998/10/01/broadway_200x121.jpg)
Broadway Commons site (center)
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Based on the latest price offered for the largest chunk of land needed to build a ballpark at Broadway Commons, the whole site likely would cost $51.4 million, new estimates show.
Hamilton County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus argues that those land costs, which he generated using figures from Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes' office, prove a new Reds ballpark at Broadway is no cheaper to build than a stadium at the riverfront site he favors.
"It's no longer cheaper to build one place or the other," he said. "For the purposes of this construction project, it's the same cost. For the purposes of this construction project, it's the same time."
Faster and cheaper have been two of the most important platforms of the pro-Broadway campaign pushing for a "yes" vote on Issue 11. Hamilton County Commissioner John Dowlin, the lone Broadway backer among the commissioners, charged Mr. Bedinghaus with inflating the Broadway land costs.
At $51.4 million, the Broadway land would cost more per acre than the riverfront land that Hamilton County purchased for the new Bengals stadium, he said.
"I think everyone would agree that Broadway Commons is less valuable than the land on the front door of our community," he said. "To me, we're at the point of having a lot of heat and not a lot of light on this whole argument."
But Mr. Bedinghaus said it makes sense to him that land out of the floodplain could be worth more than land "that was under 10 feet of water two years ago."
Mr. Dowlin also argues the only reason Broadway wouldn't be built faster than a riverfront ballpark would be if lawyers make good on their threats to file a lawsuit if Issue 11 passes in favor of Broadway.
Issue 11 asks voters to create a county charter to prohibit the county from building a new Reds ballpark anywhere but Broadway. Broadway backers argue passage of Issue 11 would undo the deal the county made with the Reds to build a ballpark on the riverfront site next to the Crown known as Baseball on Main or the "Wedge."
Attorney Bill Seitz, a Green Township trustee, has pledged to challenge the creation of a charter for such a purpose if it passes. "What's so important about the riverfront that we'd go to court over it?" Mr. Dowlin countered.
Mr. Bedinghaus said even without a lawsuit, building at Broadway would mean negotiating a new deal with the Reds.
"Since the Reds have shown zero interest in wanting to go there, the likelihood of the Reds waking up on Nov. 4 and saying, "Let's go,' is zero," Mr. Bedinghaus said.
Once the county got a deal with the team -- if one could be reached -- officials would have to purchase the land and hire architects who would spend at least a year designing a Broadway ballpark, Mr. Bedinghaus said.
"We would not be started on either site . . . prior to early 2000," he said.
Mr. Bedinghaus's land-cost analysis does not assign any value to the riverfront land that would be freed up if a stadium were not built there.
Broadway backers argue that land is worth something. One campaign estimate put the value at $40 million, a considerable dent in the estimated $51.4 million land cost for Broadway.
But Mr. Bedinghaus argues that while the riverfront land is valuable, it isn't desirable for anything but parks or a ballpark because it floods.
The county could donate the land to the city for parks as a "good will" gesture, Mr. Bedinghaus said.
"But that doesn't put money in our pockets," he said. "I have a hard time paying contractors with good will. I have to pay them in cash."
Mr. Dowlin strongly believes the riverfront land has a value and that a developer might want it, especially if the county leaves the Cinergy Field floodwall intact.
But even if the calculations assume that land has no value, "then it's a break-even," Mr. Dowlin said.
That's just the message that the pro-riverfront campaign wants to get out, Mr. Bedinghaus said.
Mr. Bedinghaus bases his $51.4 million price tag on a price the county received last week on the bulk of the Broadway site at Broadway and Reading Road.
The owners of that piece of the Broadway site offered to sell 18.2 acres to the county for $26.4 million. A 1996 offer for the land made by Robert Chavez of Chavez Properties put a $24 million price on the land, and the latest offer provides for an increase of no more than 10 percent over the old offer.
That $26.4 million is more than four times the value Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes' office assigns the land for tax purposes. The auditor's office values the land at about $6.5 million.
The land is now parking lots and would be worth considerably more as the site of a baseball stadium, something the auditor's value doesn't take into account.
Mr. Bedinghaus assumes owners of other property needed for a Broadway ballpark would ask for the same markup. He multiplied the auditor's values for the other parcels of land by 4.07 to get the $51.4 million total.
It's common for other property owners to watch what the first seller gets and ask for a similar markup, said Norm Miller, director of the University of Cincinnati's real estate program.
"I don't think there is any standard in the industry," he said. "Whatever the cost is for one owner, the others want the same. I think that's just standard market behavior."
But Mr. Dowlin argued that the county hasn't negotiated a price for the 18.2-acre parcel yet, so it's possible that the price would be lower than $26.4 million.
The other land that would be needed for the site includes:
- The Greyhound bus station, valued by the auditor's office at about $3.2 million.
- Property south of Court Street owned by Chavez Properties, valued at about $2 million by the auditor's office.
- Property south of Court Street owned by Columbia Oldsmobile, valued at $663,000 by the auditor's office.
Stadium story list
![[broadway commons]](/editions/1998/10/01/broadway_600x363.jpg)