Brochu attempted to convince his partners that the only long-term solution to keep the Expos in Montreal was to replace Olympic Stadium. In addition to being poorly located—far from population centres, restaurants, and bars—fans perceived it as cavernous and unsafe. Additionally, free agents were letting it be known they were not willing to play for the Expos because of Olympic Stadium's poor playing conditions. A proposed 35,000-seat downtown facility, to be called Labatt Park, was announced in 1997 with a budgeted cost of $250 million and an anticipated opening date of 2001. It would have been a retro-classic park with a facade reminiscent of historic Bonaventure Station. According to a Montreal Gazette editorial supporting the new park, Brochu's threat to move the team unless Olympic Stadium was replaced was "simple logic." Brochu sought $150 million in funding from the provincial government, but Premier Lucien Bouchard refused, saying he could not authorize public funding for a stadium when the province was being forced to close hospitals and had still not paid the Olympic Stadium debt. Many members of the consortium instead favoured selling the team. Hoping to pressure a sale, some members began to feed anonymous tips to the French press to make internal discord between Brochu and his partners public. Attendance continued to fall, decreasing by 39 percent in to an average of 11,295 spectators per game. It was the first of five consecutive seasons in which Montreal drew fewer than one million fans. One of the few bright spots of this time was the blossoming of Vladimir Guerrero into a star; he made four consecutive All-Star Games from 1999 to 2002, each time as the Expos' sole representative. Guerrero would eventually be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018.