BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[broadway commons]](/editions/1998/10/01/broadway_200x121.jpg)
Broadway Commons site (center)
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The primary owners of the site known as Broadway Commons have offered to sell their land to Hamilton County for $26.4 million, ending some uncertainty surrounding the cost of a new Reds ballpark at Broadway Street and Reading Road.
Boosters of the Broadway site downtown hailed the offer as "a great deal for taxpayers," especially compared with the roughly $70 million cost for land for the new riverfront Bengals stadium.
"For less than half the football price, commissioners can purchase property for baseball, the sport that hosts 81 home games each season as opposed to football's 10," Broadway Campaign Coordinator Melisa Rottinghaus said.
But backers of the riverfront site next to the Crown warned $26 million is just part of what the county would have to pay for the land needed at Broadway. Most of the site known as Baseball on Main or the "Wedge," on the other hand, is publicly owned.
"By the time all the shooting's over, it's well over $30 million, pushing $35 million" to buy all the land needed for Broadway, said John Schneider, chairman of the pro-riverfront Move Greater Cincinnati Forward campaign.
The cost of building a Reds ballpark at Broadway vs. the riverfront has become a central theme in the campaign over Issue 11, which asks Hamilton County voters to create a county charter in order to force the county to build a new ballpark at Broadway Commons.
Opponents of Issue 11 have argued that forcing commissioners to build at Broadway would allow landowners to demand outrageous prices.
In a letter to Hamilton County commissioners Wednesday, attorney Robert Manley said the owners of the 18.2 acres of parking lots that make up the bulk of the ballpark site would sell for 10 percent more than the price they offered the county in 1996.
"My client hopes that this commitment will alleviate price concerns that you may have in regard to Broadway Commons," Mr. Manley wrote.
In the 1996 offer, released Wednesday, Robert Chavez of Chavez Properties put a price of $24 million on the 18.2 acres owned by Broadway Partners. The Hamilton County Auditor's Office values that land at $5.8 million for tax purposes, Auditor Dusty Rhodes said.
Much of the land was purchased in 1985, the auditor's records show, with some pieces added as recently as 1990. No purchase price was immediately available.
Back then, Mr. Chavez also put a $5 million price for a smaller parcel south of Court Street owned by Chavez Properties. The offer made Wednesday made no mention of an offer on that land, however.
Mr. Schneider argues a new ballpark won't fit on the 18.2 acres. He and Hamilton County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus said the county would have to buy more land for a stadium, including the nearby Greyhound Bus Lines station, boosting land costs far beyond the letter's 90-day price offer.
But Hamilton County Commissioner John Dowlin, a Broadway backer, said buying land at Broadway will be no more painful than buying land for the Bengals' new stadium.
He argued during a debate before the Greater Cincinnati Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration that building at Broadway would be at least $60 million cheaper, excluding land costs.
Mr. Dowlin doesn't think it's fair to add land costs. He argues the riverfront land has value, too. If the county doesn't build a new ballpark there, officials could sell the land to a developer or contribute it to a public project, he said.
But Mr. Bedinghaus, who debated for the riverfront, said the land costs at Broadway chip away at any perceived savings at the site.
While the publicly owned riverfront land is worth millions, he said he can't imagine the county being able to sell it to a private developer to get cash to help pay for the stadium.
"Yeah, it's a very valuable piece of property, but I can't turn it into cash," he said.
During the debate, Mr. Bedinghaus tried to poke holes in some of Mr. Dowlin's most-used arguments for Broadway, including that a ballpark at Broadway could be built faster.
If voters pass Issue 11, Mr. Bedinghaus said, the county would have to negotiate a new deal with the Reds, who have rejected Broadway in favor of the riverfront. That would take months, assuming a new deal could ever be reached, he said.
Lawyers also have threatened a legal challenge over the vote if it passes, arguing it's illegal to create a charter that doesn't change county government simply to site a ballpark.
Mr. Bedinghaus warned such challenges could delay construction, too, making it unlikely a new ballpark could be built much faster at Broadway than on the riverfront.
Mr. Dowlin agreed those legal challenges could delay construction, but said, "Why is it so important that the will of the people be thwarted?"
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![[broadway commons]](/editions/1998/10/01/broadway_600x363.jpg)