ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 1996 TAG: 9606180088
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
The deadline to submit possible sites for a Major League Baseball stadium in Northern Virginia passed without any takers Monday night, likely imperiling chances to have a team playing professional baseball in Virginia by 1999.
What was once a list of at least 13 possible sites for a ballpark had withered to one by Monday morning. That lone entrant - an attractive but troubled site in Arlington County - didn't meet a 5 p.m. deadline to submit an application and $150,000 fee.
Meanwhile, in Richmond, state officials said the Virginia Lottery would have to kick in about $14 million a year to build the stadium. And that could be too much of a commitment for professional baseball to have a chance in Virginia, some lawmakers said.
Monday's developments leave would-be baseball team owner William Collins III unlikely to meet his own deadline of having a stadium site and a financing plan in hand this summer. Collins hopes to buy a team - probably the Houston Astros - after the season closes this year.
Collins' Virginia Baseball Club Inc. would move the franchise to Washington's RFK Stadium next year, and then to the new stadium in the Virginia suburbs in 1999.
``I don't think we can do it by 1999, realistically,'' Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority Chairman George Barton said Monday.
Barton said his group is still plugging for a team and will likely begin the stadium process anew.
The original stadium process envisioned localities vying for the chance to have a $220 million, 48,000-seat stadium. The project is expected to bring in millions in taxes and sales for the host locality and the state.
But one by one, possible sites in Fairfax and Loudoun counties dropped out of contention as neighbors objected to the potential noise and traffic of a ballpark.
Eventually, only a longshot site in Stafford County and the Arlington County site remained. On Friday, Stafford withdrew when it was clear the proposed site wasn't a serious contender
On Monday, officials from Arlington, the last contender, submitted material about their Potomac River site. But an anonymous donor who had pledged the $150,000 nonrefundable application fee withdrew that offer Monday in part because the Federal Aviation Administration has raised safety questions about the site's proximity to Washington National Airport, said Bill Buck, who represents Arlington on the stadium authority.
Mike Scanlon, a spokesman for Collins, remained upbeat.
``I think we will have the opportunity to buy a team this season,'' he said.
Two issues still cloud negotiations to finance a stadium: Whether channeling money from a special lottery into a baseball stadium would take money from other state services, and what effect borrowing more than $200 million could have on the state's credit rating.
The legislative subcommittee studying stadium financing plans to approve a final report July 1. But members said Monday that the report probably won't answer questions about how much state money should be spent and whether Virginia's solid credit rating should be used to borrow it.
Instead, the full General Assembly will likely be asked to consider the issues. "I think once we have a baseball team in hand looking for a new stadium, it will be a much easier vote for the legislature to make," Scanlon said.
Many lawmakers remained optimistic Monday that some solution will be found before the Astros or some other teams looking for new homes settle elsewhere.
"Personally, I think it would be a travesty if we let this opportunity slip by," said Fairfax County Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., chairman of the committee.
Winchester Sen. Russell Potts, a strong advocate of the project, rattled off about a dozen cities and states around the country in which public support has helped build stadiums.
"North Carolina has two professional teams, for crying out loud," he said. "And we have zip?''
"We also have the lowest tax rate in America," responded Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton. "There's a trade-off there."
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