TBJ: Minor League Baseball still weighing corporate relo to Bull City

Friday's edition of the Triangle Business Journal features an interesting story by Lee Weisbecker on Durham's continued courtship of Minor League Baseball, an engagement that goes well beyond MiLB's role in operating and managing the renovated Durham Athletic Park.

Besides the ongoing planning for the Minor League Baseball fan experience museum -- a project which downtown sources say has strong feasibility, assuming the City can deliver financing for the construction itself, funded by the prepared meals tax -- the TBJ reports that a behind-the-scenes recruitment effort is underway to get the professional sports league to relocate its headquarters from Tampa Bay to Durham:

For the past 30 years, the headquarters of Minor League Baseball, MiLB, has been ensconced in a waterfront office in St. Petersburg, Fla. But the 40-person operation, which oversees 160 teams in the United States and 80 in Canada and Latin America, has only three years left on its lease in a building earmarked for demolition when work begins on a new stadium for Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays.

"Our future in this building is limited," says MiLB Senior Vice President John Cook, who adds that, to date, "no serious discussions" about the future have taken place between his organization and movers and shakers in Durham.

At the same time, he doesn't call a third strike on the prospect. "There would be some potential," he says. "This is a fluid situation, and it's an interesting concept to discuss."

Durham has, of course, a strong cottage baseball industry already -- from the publication Baseball America, which relocated to Durham a quarter century ago, to the USA Baseball national amateur organization also based in the Bull CIty. (And of course, if you go back far enough, Durham was the HQ for MiLB, back in the early-mid twentieth century.)

One question that would be on everyone's mind: just where would MiLB set up its offices? The TBJ speculates that the fan experience museum, tentatively proposed for the northeast corner side of the ballpark, might be able to house MiLB offices.

Another logical likely party interested in leasing them space could be Hank Scherich of Measurement Inc. The educational testing company owner and sometimes downtown developer and investor has been gobbling up properties on Morris St., including the old Accent Hardwood Flooring office (which moved to Foster St.) and the single-family house next door to it.

Coupled with the parking lot and former Durham Farmers Market site, they now own the entire western side of a city block along Morris -- a perfect site for a much-rumored major development project. (Note the old DAP ballpark just north of the Scherich-controlled properties, which are outlined in red.)

The fulfillment of Minor League Baseball's interest in the DAP region would certainly cement the district's economic growth and direction -- something we're sure that the nascent investors in the area, a group that ranges from the often-acquiring Greenfire to local business owners like Scherich to Trinity Lofts developer and NYC planning director Alex Washburn, would love to see.

Comments

[Tar Heelz]

Anyone still having trouble with the concept behind a "Minor League Museum"? Sounds awfully defeatist. Gosh, maybe just call it the Bush League Museum.

Oh, Look kids! They have a special display honoring Kurt Russell's stint with the El Paso Sun Kings!

[Bull City Rising]

@Tar Heelz: I've had more problems with the financing (though I find myself coming around on that) than with the concept.

Yeah, there's the inevitable jokes ("minor league town, Minor League museum"), etc. But on the other hand, Durham _is_ deeply associated with the sport now, thanks to the Bulls. And I believe MiLB has the highest attendance of any professional sport in the US, making it something that resonates with people.

There's something very American about the dream of minor league baseball, the idea that you can be in an aspirational league trying to work your way to the Big Leagues. You don't get that in basketball or football. (Before Barry chimes in, yes, you get that in soccer to an extent, but there's not the cultural phenomenon in the US that you get with baseball.)