John Wiseman, special to the Times-News
The Cumberland Times-News Tue Jun 07, 2011, 11:10 PM EDT
— CUMBERLAND — The recent entertainment and commercial success of the annual DelFest music festival demonstrates our region will draw thousands of tourists if we offer something people want.
A local group of citizens wants to build an entertainment stadium that could provide year-round outdoor cultural events. Its dream is to make the site the entertainment capital of the tri-state area.
The group imagines a place that the 70,000 residents of the tri-state region could call their cultural center for a variety of entertainment performances, ranging from minor league baseball games to bluegrass and rock concerts in the summer and ice skating in the winter.
Add circuses, car shows and regional soccer games in the fall, flower shows in the spring, intermixed with religious revivals and other inspirational events, and members believe they will have a cultural magnet that can provide something for everyone.
This is what a local planning group envisions and has been working on the past year. It is currently seeking private contributions to defray the cost of a feasibility study to determine if the region can sustain such an enterprise. The committee, comprised of John Wiseman, Lee Fiedler, Howard Reynolds, Larry Hohing and Ted Troxell, believes its ultimate vision of building a multidimensional stadium can be realized if enough people in the Western Maryland and neighboring communities join in taking ownership of a project meant to economically rejuvenate our region and to lift our spirits.
“It will take our collective contributions to build a place we can all call a home away from home,” said Reynolds, a former sports star at Fort Hill High School and Frostburg State University.
Working with Gary McGuigan, project executive for the Maryland Stadium Authority, the local group has learned its ultimate vision of building a stadium is not far-fetched. This state agency, responsible for the construction of Camden Yards and involved in the building of the Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, will assign a feasibility study to an experienced consulting firm once sufficient funds are secured.
The planning group is now issuing a call for private financial support to match support coming from other sources. Its goal is $25,000.
All contributions are tax-deductible once the study begins. Contributions of $100 or more will be returned to contributors should insufficient funds be raised. Lesser amounts will still earn a tax write-off. The Cumberland Dapper Dan Club has agreed to serve as a conduit for managing the funds received. Contributions should be sent to the sports club at P.O. Box 1322, Cumberland, MD 21502.
The planning committee looks to the future when area sports and concert enthusiasts will not have to drive hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of dollars to see a professional baseball game or other entertainment of choice, said Hohing, a Cumberland CPA who has spent a lifetime driving to sporting events. “It is time to bring more of these pleasures home. Hosting our own events would also bring more of our children and grandchildren home to visit, and perhaps to live here if we have more attractions to bring them back.”
“The economic impact of building a new stadium that provides year-round events could be enormous,” said Fiedler, former Kelly-Springfield executive and Cumberland mayor. “It would help attract new businesses and the jobs that go with them, as well as those jobs required to build the stadium and operate it all year.”
Ted Troxell, former sportswriter for the Salisbury Daily Times, watched Salisbury, Md., grow and thrive because of its minor league team. Purdue Stadium hosts the team and other entertainment activities. He sees parallels with the prospective team in this area. “Like the Eastern Shore stadium that attracts summer vacationers from Ocean City, ours would bring summer traffic from Deep Creek Lake.”
Wiseman became “hooked” on baseball as a young boy watching minor league games and his heroes play in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Western Marylanders who once followed local major leaguers like Lefty Grove, Bob Robertson, and John Kruk might now be inspired by a new generation of baseball players like Aaron Laffey of the Seattle Mariners. A minor league team here can become a proving ground for new young local players, thus keeping our rich area baseball heritage alive
The committee invites supporters of the project to stop by a table in front of the CBIZ Building on Heritage Days on Saturday and Sunday. Some of the committee members will be available to hand out fliers, answer questions and sign up volunteers to help complete the project.
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