Diamondbacks Still Owe $6 Mil for Ballpark Land

PHOENIX-A court ruled on Monday that the Arizona Diamondbacks got too good a deal on its purchase of a two-acre parcel in downtown Phoenix that is home to the team’s new ballpark.

An appellate court upheld a Superior Court’s earlier ruling that a portion of the land where the ballpark was built, a two-acre swath at the corner of 7th and Jefferson streets, is worth $50 per sf, not the $11 per sf that the Maricopa County Stadium District paid when it condemned the land. The result is that the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are so tight on money that they asked 10 players to take deferred salaries for the next several years, will own nearly $6 million to the Downtown Phoenix Partners, which had owned the land.

In 1995, the two-acre parcel, along with several others in the area, was taken through a condemnation process to make room for the stadium where the Arizona Diamondbacks play, Bank One Ballpark. At the time, the Maricopa County Stadium District, which was created to fund up to $238 million in construction of the stadium, said the land was worth only $11 per sf.