Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 17, 1993 TAG: 9312170191
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The city councilman who has made it his business to make Roanoke and the Roanoke Valley a sports-friendly place, said Thursday he has an artist's rendering from HOK Sports of Kansas City, Mo., of a combination football, baseball and track stadium seating 8,000 to 12,000 customers that could be built in downtown Roanoke.
"Home plate would be at the corner of First Street and Shenandoah Avenue looking out toward the Hotel Roanoke," he said.
Never mind that the city does not own the real estate that McCadden covets. Never mind that Roanoke has no professional baseball tenant for such fashionable digs. Never mind that others see a convention center instead of a ballpark there. Never mind that the price tag for the ballpark alone is estimated at $8 million.
McCadden has other concerns.
"I don't think I have the votes [on city council] to get it done," he said.
But a fellow can dream, and in McCadden's case he dreams classy dreams.
Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum Sports Facility Group is the architectural firm that gave the world Orioles Park at Camden Yards, the new Comiskey Park in Chicago and other state-of-the-art baseball facilities that have had critics of the urban landscape fainting in ecstasy.
The plans for Roanoke even call for 2,000 to 3,000 parking spaces. It could be very cozy.
"They're going to build a pedestrian bridge from the hotel to the market anyway," McCadden said. "This would tie it all together."
One way McCadden has in mind to raise some cash for this endeavor is to sell the land on which Victory Stadium sits.
"Then we bulldoze that sucker right on over," he said.
by CNB