From Staff Reports

The funding plan for a $37.5 million renovation at Asheville’s McCormick Field —  reportedly — depended upon a single vote from the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority on July 26. 

“With commitments secured from the city, Buncombe County and Asheville’s own minor league baseball team, the TDA buy-in was the final piece needed,” the Ashevile Citizen Times reported on July 27. “The vote, which needed a supermajority, failed. Twenty minutes later, in an unusual move, the board voted again. This time, one of the two holdouts, Scott Patel, switched sides, giving the TDA’s $22.9 million investment the seven-vote approval it needed — and cementing the Tourism Product Development Fund’s largest investment in its 20-year history, according to TDA spokesperson Ashley Greenstein.”

As for Patel, who originally was a “no” vote for the project, he reportedly said after the first vote that it was hard for him to vote for something “this big with so much money attached to it,” which, he opined, would tie the hands of future board members. 

“Following the failed vote, with Patel and board member Andrew Celwyn voting against, the board resumed discussion on the item,” the ACT noted. 

“In an email to fellow board members, Celwyn laid out a number of reasons for his opposition to the funding proposal, among them a concern that the project represents a ‘shakedown’ of the city by Major League Baseball, a multibillion dollar industry,” the newspaper reported.

After the meeting, Celwyn told the ACT, “People are failing to recognize that this is a subsidy for Major League Baseball.”

The newspaper added, “His (Celwyn’s) second major critique, he said, was the way the conversation has been framed: baseball or no baseball. Even if the city lost its minor league franchise, he was hopeful the city could get an independent team for its stadium.”

To that end, Celwyn reportedly said in his email to the board, “‘If there is one thing that we know at the TDA, it’s the drawing power of Asheville. We draw tourists to visit. We draw residents to come live here. We draw businesses to come set up shop here in Buncombe County. There is absolutely no reason we wouldn’t be able to draw a new team to McCormick Field, if the Asheville Tourists decided not to stay. We can both keep our money for other projects and keep baseball here in Asheville.”

Notwithstanding Celwyn’s scathing comments about the Tourists’ funding, the ACT noted, “While a few (TDA) members voiced skepticism around funding the project, or at least hesitation in the early days of conversation, some, like Vice Chair Matthew Lehman, said he saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate the ‘viability of a pathway fund for large scale projects.’”