Baseball Backers Say Poll Shows Support in N.Va.

Two-Thirds Say They'd Go to Ballpark

Virginia baseball officials said yesterday that a poll showed a major league team in the commonwealth would enjoy solid support from Virginians, particularly those living in the Washington suburbs, and would have little effect on the Baltimore Orioles.

Fairfax County Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully), who is also chairman of the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority, said the study conducted this year indicates "broad and deep support for bringing Major League Baseball to Virginia. The study demonstrates clearly that the base for success is there."

The poll results were released as part of the campaign to persuade Major League Baseball officials to transfer the Montreal Expos to Northern Virginia. The study addressed two of the main arguments lodged against bringing a baseball team to the state: the fear among some baseball officials and Orioles owner Peter Angelos that a team only 45 miles away from Baltimore would drain fans away from the Orioles and objections from some local residents to putting public money into a $400 million stadium that they believe would be intrusive and add to the region's traffic headaches.

The poll comes amid a concerted effort by stadium officials to build public support for their plans. The group is holding information sessions for interested residents and has been wooing young professionals with parties at area sports bars. Public meetings were held in Arlington and Fairfax counties this week. Another is planned for Loudoun County after Memorial Day.

"This is the final push," said William L. Collins III, chairman and chief executive of the Virginia Baseball Club, which proposes to buy the Expos if Virginia wins the team. "We think we have answered every question that Major League Baseball has asked."

Major League Baseball owns the Expos, and officials have said they may decide as soon as mid-July whether the team will be sold to competing groups in Virginia, the District or Portland, Ore.

Virginia stadium officials have highlighted five sites for a 42,500-seat ballpark, three of them in Arlington, one near Dulles International Airport and one on Fort Belvoir property. The three Arlington locations include one in Rosslyn, the Costco complex in Pentagon City and a nearby site along Army Navy Drive.

Officials said the survey showed a majority of Arlington County residents back baseball. In that county, people were asked whether they would support building a stadium if it were located somewhere near Pentagon City, if it included a conference center and Little League field "for community use" and if no taxes "from Arlington citizens or Virginia citizens were used to pay for it." Fifty-five percent responded that they would support such a stadium.

The authority's stadium financing plan includes selling $285 million in bonds. They would be repaid through a combination of sales and income taxes generated at the stadium, a tax on tickets and, possibly, a regional tax on rental cars or hotel rooms. The rest of the money needed each year to pay off the debt would come from renting retail space at the stadium and renting the park for other events, officials said.

The survey did not impress a group of county residents who argue that a stadium would bring unwanted traffic, noise and light pollution.

Sarah Summerville, head of NoArlingtonStadium.org, said she did not "believe those numbers" in the poll, because the survey was conducted in January, before information on location or financing was released.

"I am doubting that we will get the same results if we do a poll in Arlington County right now," Summerville said.

The poll included results from three phone surveys this year. One survey included 651 Virginians, 250 from Northern Virginia. In another, 300 Arlington residents were called, and finally there was a poll of 400 Howard and Anne Arundel County residents. The results from suburban Maryland were combined with results of a poll taken in Montgomery and Prince George's counties two years ago to achieve a sample from what stadium officials term the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

The poll found that half of those surveyed in Virginia -- and two-thirds in Northern Virginia -- said that they or others in their families were at least "somewhat likely" to attend one or more games per year.

Stadium officials said the poll also shows that a team in Virginia would have much less effect on the Orioles fan base than one located in the District. Officials said the survey found that 33 percent of Orioles fans who live in the Maryland suburbs between Washington and Baltimore would attend games in the District, compared with 17 percent of those fans who said they would go to games in Virginia.

The poll also found that a team in the District would be less successful in drawing Virginians to games, officials said. Seventeen percent of people who said they or a family member would attend a game in Virginia said they would not go to any games in the District.