Monday, July 29, 2002
Tennis tourney's future in doubt
Organizers want to have control of Mason complex
By Cindi Andrews, candrews@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MASON — Over the next two weeks, Cincinnatians will stand elbow-to-flag with Gustavo Kuerten's crazy countrymen and pester Andre Agassi for autographs as the world's top 50 male tennis players compete in a tournament that 35 million people worldwide will watch on television.
It's an opportunity matched in only three other U.S. cities —— New York, Miami and Indian Wells, Calif. —— and Tristate businesses and residents alike say it's one they would hate to lose.
ATP Tennis Stadium.
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But the Mason tournament —— renamed the Western & Southern Financial Masters this year —— opens Thursday under a cloud of uncertainty. With the lease on its home set to expire in three years, tournament organizers Paul and Bruce Flory say they'll go elsewhere if they can't negotiate the purchase or long-term lease of the ATP Tennis Center in Mason. The property includes three stadiums built by the tournament and the Bruin Golf Course.
Carl Lindner's American Financial Group, which owns it, wants $16.5 million for it.
The Florys remain $2.6 million to $3.2 million short of that asking price. And that's after Deerfield Township trustees became the latest Warren County body agreeing to financial support, indicating Friday that they would likely contribute $25,000 to $35,000 a year, probably for 20-25 years.
“At least I know what they're thinking about,“ event chairman Paul Flory said Sunday. “ ... So we'll see where we go from here.”
IF YOU GO
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The Western & Southern Financial Masters schedule:
• Seniors, 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday
• Qualifier, 10 a.m. Saturday and Aug. 4
• Main Draw, 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Aug. 5-8; 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Aug. 9; noon and 7 p.m. Aug. 10; and 1 p.m. Aug. 11
For tickets, call (513) 651-0303 or visit
www.masters-series.com
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Mr. Flory said he has no other prospects for financial help buying the 90-acre site; the city of Cincinnati and other groups outside of Warren County have turned him down.
He also has had no further talks with American Financial officials about the $16.5 million asking price, he said. The Enquirer learned through a public records request earlier this month that the property appraised at $7.8 million last year based on its most likely non-tournament use: an office park.
American Financial representatives would not comment on negotiations.
The Florys' lease expires in 2005, and Mr. Flory said June 28 thatif they didn't have a deal in a month, the opportunity could be gone.
“My feeling is that there is no hard deadline,” son Bruce Flory, the tournament's director, clarified later. The concern, he said, is that it would take several years to build a new facility from scratch in another city.
“If we don't think we're going to get anything done, we need to start seriously looking elsewhere,” Bruce Flory said.
“Wimbledon is a small city in England, but everyone knows where it is,” said Shirley Bonekemper, director of the Warren County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “That's where we could be headed.”
The bureau has committed $2.9 million over 19 years; Mason officials have agreed to $2.5 million over 25 years; and the Warren County commissioners are considering giving $850,000 to $1.1 million. Deerfield's contribution would amount to $500,000 to $875,000.
But the tournament is invaluable to the Tristate's tourism and development industries, many say.
“In all that this region is going through in terms of negative publicity, it's nice to have the Tennis Masters Series to talk about,” Ms. Bonekemper says.
Businesses benefit
More tangibly, the money that tournament visitors spend at hotels, restaurants, gas stations and elsewhere adds $23.3 million a year to the local economy, according to a University of Cincinnati study. The Masters draws almost 170,000 people a year, Paul Flory says —— about 40 percent from outside of Greater Cincinnati.
“It has a tremendous impact,” says Michel Sheer, general manager of the nearby Kings Island Resort and Conference Center. “It's like having a convention in town.”
Or several conventions.
The largest convention booked in Cincinnati this year —— the Progressive Baptist National Convention, since canceled —— would have brought in 8,000 people, according to the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau. The Riverfront Classic, the fall football contest between two historically black colleges at Paul Brown Stadium, draws 16,000 people.
Businesses ranging from downtown Cincinnati's hotels to Lebanon's specialty shops credit the Masters with boosting their bottom lines in August. The Cincinnatian, which has 146 rooms and a restaurant, sees about the same impact from the tournament —— 20 miles north of the hotel —— as it does from the average downtown convention, said Lynn Park, the hotel's marketing manager.
“Tennis fans overall probably tend to spend a little more,” Ms. Bonekemper noted. “They eat in good restaurants.”
The tournament also is a selling point for attracting new companies and, thus, expanding the tax base, business leaders say.
Mike Schueler, president of Lebanon-based developer Henkle-Schueler, takes prospective companies to the ATP Tennis Center as an example of the region's quality of life. It's something they can't find in Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco or Atlanta, Mr. Schueler points out.
“The loss of the ATP would be similar to the loss of the Cincinnati Symphony,” he said. “If we ever lost it, we'd never get it back.”
Residents mostly supportive
A few longtime Mason residents are upset about the prospect of their tax money going toward a property the city doesn't need and wouldn't control.
“It doesn't benefit the taxpayers —— it benefits the hotels and businesses,” said Mary Lou Shields, a retiree who worries she'll have to sell her home if her taxes rise much more. “I support the tennis tournament staying, but it should be privately funded. It's putting a burden on people in Mason that don't need it.”
That's not what Mason Councilman Victor Kidd is hearing: “Generally speaking, the mood of the people is "We want to keep it here.' ”
Mark Davis, a Salem Township resident who plays tennis recreationally, used to take his vacations at tournament time so he could work as a line judge.
He remembers watching “a skinny little kid” playing on one of the tennis center's side courts years ago. “I remember telling my buddy, "This guy's going to be something. He's a hitter,' ” Mr. Davis said.
Sure enough, Pete Sampras hasn't done too badly.
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