Fiscal 2023 DIF Account

More Great Comment

1)     I wonder if any of the restaurants in the Canal District are going to be allowed to participate in the big food truck festival they're having at Polar Park?

 If not, it appears that their goal is to have a self-contained facility that will create almost no economic spin off for the Canal District.

 


2)     Hello, the WooSox are a for profit business that is competition with restaraunts and bars in the Canal District for discretionary spending of the patrons and it is their best interest to get people into the ballpark to purchase concessions, at the expense of the restaraunts and bars in the district. 

Couple that with ballpark attendees swallowing up the parking in the area which previously supported these businesses and that is direct competition

 

3)          Yes canal district restaurants will be allowed to participate in the food truck festival by having all of the parking for their customers taken by people going to the park to have their meals from trucks instead of the taxpaying businesses. 

You really can’t make up such a bungled municipal situation. It’s surreal how badly thought out all of this is.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hello, the WooSox are a for profit business that is competition with restaraunts and bars in the Canal District for discretionary spending of the patrons and it is their best interest to get people into the ballpark to purchase concessions, at the expense of the restaraunts and bars in the district. Couple that with ballpark attendees swallowing up the parking in the area which previously supported these businesses and that is direct competition.
David Z. said…
Need I remind everyone that it was the Canal District Business Association who lobbied for the ballpark spearheading the post card campaign to Woo the PawSox to move to Worcester.
Bill Randell said…
David Z:

You are absolutely correct!!! Wonder the Canal Business Association feels right now about Polar Park???

Common Sense said…
I know there was some talk about booking concerts and other events on the days the team is playing out of town. Maybe we'll see some next year as these events are probably booked well in advance. Five thousand wound up concertgoers could cap off their night at some of the bars in the Canal District.
Anonymous said…
David Z, I assume the support from the canal district assumed a competent plan instead of what actually happened to them.

The city better hope that these people can afford the new tax increases that are inevitable.
Anonymous said…
David Z,
The folks in the Canal District have been credited with being a large contributing factor for the PawSox becoming the WooSox but lets look at this in the context of time and geography. At the time I assume that the Canal District may have assumed, as did I, that the ball park would be located on the larger Wyman Gordon parcel on the south side of Madison St. It made sense logically because it was larger, and could most likely accommodated some on site parking, and relatively flat. Unfortunately someone decided to construct the ballpark on the north side of Madison into a hill which reportedly was one of the drivers to the cost escalation(s), both in terms of land acquisition as well as construction costs. In hindsight the move was logical in that the vast amount of parking is north of Madison and who want to move 10,000 patrons from the north side of Madison St to the south side of Madison St between the hours of 4 p.m and 6 p.m.. I must further assume that these folks did this out of civic pride and not out of their extensive urban planning of financial planning and that they thought the City folks would handle these facets.
The cat is out of the bag so lets know hope that the City folks can turn this project around for all the taxpayers and residents of the City, to include the business of the Canal District who created the District with their private investments and little or no help of the City as well as the residents of the Canal District how chose to move their prior to 10,000 baseball fans taking over their neighborhood.
Anonymous said…
We need to see a comparison of meals taxes collected from canal district businesses from summer and spring of 2019 to the same period of 2021 and then again after the season ends.