Orioles Don't Plan to Renew Camden Yards Lease, Want to 'Revamp' Stadium District

The Baltimore Orioles confirmed Wednesday that they won't trigger a five-year extension to their current lease at Camden Yards.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles chairman John Angelos released statements both affirming their desire for "a long-term, multi-decade, public-private partnership that both develops and revitalizes the Camden Yards complex as a magnet for sports tourism and leverages Maryland taxpayers' investment in the property."

"The Orioles, the Moore administration, and the Maryland Stadium Authority look forward to reimagining Camden Yards to deliver a live, work, play theme that will bring residents, businesses, and tourists to downtown Baltimore year-round," the team said.

This comes amid wider uncertainty surrounding the Orioles ownership.

In September, The Athletic's Daniel Kaplan reported that not only was Goldman Sachs charged with exploring a potential sale but also that Louis Angelos, the son of principal owner Peter Angelos, was suing other members of the family to push through a sale.

That naturally raises other questions, namely whether a new owner would prefer to move the Orioles to a new city.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said the franchise won't be going anywhere as long as he's in charge. The statements from Moore and Angelos offer further reassurance.

Still, fans may not rest easy until the Orioles sign a new long-term lease in Baltimore.

Even then, critics might question the utility of spending any public money to renovate a stadium that doesn't seem to need a major facelift. Using stadiums as the center of larger mixed-use business districts isn't much of a transformative solution, either.

JC Bradbury of Global Sports Matters wrote last June how a similar setup with the Atlanta Braves' Truist Park provided limited returns relative to its intended impact:

"But The Battery has not been the economic game-changer it was touted to be. The reason is familiar: Stadium-district spending is also local spending. Customers patronizing external development vendors are doing so at the expense of other local businesses, which means no net enrichment of the community or its treasury. Even though The Battery is located in the heart of a business district, its commercial fortunes did not improve more than any other Atlanta business district without a new baseball stadium."

Based on Moore's comments, the Orioles nevertheless may not have trouble getting the kind of help from state and local governments they're seeking to help fund their overall vision.