Charlotte ballpark gets approval

CHARLOTTE -- Mecklenburg County commissioners approved a lease Tuesday that will let the Charlotte Knights build a minor-league baseball stadium uptown.

The vote clears the way for the AAA team now based in Fort Mill, S.C., to begin construction in hopes of playing in Charlotte by 2009.

Also Tuesday, commissioners voted to move forward on two other projects linked to the stadium -- a new urban park named for Charlotte-born artist Romare Bearden and a mixed-use development in the old Brooklyn neighborhood in Second Ward. Those efforts are as important to uptown as a stadium, some commissioners said.

"What we are doing," said vice-chair Parks Helms, "... will create what I believe to be one of the most desirable locations in the country to work and to live."

The baseball lease agreement calls for the Knights to pay the county $1 a year for up to 99 years for just under eight acres in Third Ward.

Commissioners also agreed to spend $19 million in bonds to buy the park land and to sell property -- including Marshall Park and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools headquarters -- for the Brooklyn Village project.

All three plans were approved by votes of 7 to 2, with commissioners Bill James and Dan Bishop voting no.

James and Bishop both oppose using county money for sports entertainment, and James said leasing Third Ward land to the Knights breaks a promise to voters who approved bond money in 2004 for the property to be used for a park.

Tuesday's votes are the last significant actions the board must take to wrap up a complex series of land swaps first pitched in 2005 to help free up land for the baseball stadium.

In approving the three measures, commissioners rejected a settlement offer pitched last week by real estate attorney Jerry Reese, who has filed three lawsuits to try to stop the stadium plan.

Reese isn't opposed to baseball uptown. But he thinks Charlotte could attract a major-league team and that local leaders are short-sighted in giving up valuable county land for a minor league stadium.

Reese made 10 requests in his six-page settlement offer. Among them, he wanted commissioners to give him an option to buy about 32 acres of county-owned land in Second Ward.

He then would use the land for his own "Brooklyn Renaissance" project, which would include a 40,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof built to major-league and NCAA specifications.

In exchange, Reese would offer, among other things, a new CMS administrative building and a new aquatic center. He also offered to move the old Second Ward High gymnasium and turn it into a museum devoted to the school and Second Ward community.

After the board rejected his offer, Reese pledged to aggressively continue his legal suits against the county, including hiring attorneys to ask the Local Government Commission stop the use of bond money for the park land. Also looming is another threatened lawsuit that claims the deal violates the 2004 bond package. That suit is expected to be filed when the county formally signs the lease.

"This matter is far from over," Reese said. "And if commissioners think it is over they will soon realize that it's not."

Commissioners said Reese's proposal wasn't in the county's best interest. The settlement didn't take into account leaders' efforts to revitalize other parts of uptown, said chairman Jennifer Roberts.

Dan Rajkowski, vice president and general manager of the Knights, called Tuesday's board action an exciting step in what has been a long process.

"While we're a regional team and provide professional baseball to the entire region, we have felt for a number of years that the best location" is uptown, he said. "Hopefully we'll be opening a ballpark there in the near future."