By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Bob Bedinghaus is a consultant for the Cincinnati Bengals. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

Given what Paul Brown Stadium cost Bob Bedinghaus' political career, you couldn't blame the man if he never set foot in the place.

But, in fact, the former Hamilton County commissioner goes to work there every day.

"It's a great facility," said Bedinghaus, on the eve of the season opener. "It's worked out beautifully.''

Bedinghaus has repeatedly stuck his neck out for Cincinnati's professional football franchise - from being the point man in the 1996 campaign to pass a sales tax increase to build new homes for the Bengals and Reds, to his 2000 re-election campaign, where he took the hit for the $51 million in cost overruns at the $459 million football stadium.

It is little wonder, then, that after he was turned out of office, the Bengals offered him office space for his fledgling consulting business - B Squared Ventures - and hired him for a variety of business development and stadium security projects.

In August 2000, as the brand-spanking-new football field was hosting its first event - a 24-20 preseason win over the Chicago Bears - Bedinghaus was a candidate for re-election toting a heavy load.

Tied securely around his neck were the cost-overruns, grumbling over the sales tax increase that paid for the stadium - and, especially, resentment over a lease agreement signed by county officials that many Hamilton County taxpayers believed was just too sweet a deal for the Bengals, all take and no give.

It was too heavy a weight to carry.

Bedinghaus, a Republican politician who had been elected with 60 percent of the vote only four years before, was bounced out of office by Democrat Todd Portune. The 60 percent vote of 1996 had shrunk to 43 percent.

"I had a difficult argument to make in that election,'' said Bedinghaus, sitting in Paul Brown Stadium's club lounge Friday, two days before the team's fourth season in its new home was to begin. "I knew that every politician in every other city who had been the point man for building new stadiums lost their elections.

"I had to go out and sell a vision of the future," he said. "It was tough."

But he believes that he was right; that Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ball Park will be the bookends for a revitalized riverfront.

Bedinghaus wheeled around in his chair in the club lounge and pointed out the picture window toward the riverfront.

"Look out there; all of the big pieces are in place,'' he said, pointing toward the east, to Great American, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center rising up between the sports facilities and the tree-lined Second Street obscuring the view of a sunken Fort Washington Way.

The rest of the pieces of riverfront revitalization, Bedinghaus said, will take longer to complete than originally thought. The Banks, a major retail and residential development meant to fill the space between Great American and Paul Brown Stadium, has been stalled by an uncertain economy.

"We were all probably a little overambitious when we thought that, within eight years, we could do it all - the stadiums, The Banks, the Freedom Center, the parking garages," Bedinghaus said. "But it will happen."

Now, in his work for the Bengals, Bedinghaus concentrates on finding other uses for Paul Brown Stadium, shopping it as a venue for other sports ventures. He worked on the Bengals' unsuccessful bid to bring this year's Women's World Cup Soccer to the stadium and tried, also without success, to bring the annual Army-Navy football game here.

Among the successes, he said, were the high school football tournament games played at the stadium last fall and the Ohio State-University of Cincinnati game.

"The Bengals don't want this place to sit empty half the year,'' Bedinghaus said. "We'll keep trying.''

Before the 2000 election, Bedinghaus had what many considered a golden political career, climbing the ladder from Delhi Township clerk to Hamilton County elections director and, finally, to a county commission seat. Many believed he might run for a statewide office, such as secretary of state.

Bedinghaus acknowledges that the damage from the 2000 campaign might have made him unelectable in Hamilton County.

But he says he has no desire to seek office again-and has no regrets.

"I tend to think that people live their lives in segments,'' he said. "That segment is over.''

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com