COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – New baseball fields could potentially be built in Midtown Park in College Station. Last week, College Station City Council heard a proposal for nine all-turf baseball fields to be built on 80 acres of land behind Costco.
“We absolutely need more baseball fields for our little league and senior league programs,” explained College Station Mayor John Nichols. “We’re planning on building fields. We’ve been working towards that for the last several years.”
In 2024 the city announced plans to build three additional baseball fields at Veterans Park, but this new proposal could halt those plans.
“Keep in mind, we get nine fields this way,” Mayor Nichols began. “We only get three fields over at Veterans Park. So, there’s a distinct opportunity.”
The Southern Roots Baseball Complex was proposed by A Brush Above (ABA) Services, based in College Station. If the plan goes forward, the city would enter and public-private partnership which has many benefits, according to Chief Development Officer for College Station Michael Ostrowski.
“One of the benefits is that it can reduce the cost significantly,” said Ostrowski.
In the current state of the proposal, the city would be responsible for $15 to $20 million dollars of the overall $55 million dollar project, along with the 80 acres of land. The discrepancy between $15 million and $20 million is due to whether a championship field is built at the Midtown Park facility.
“The $15 million is if the city doesn’t move forward with a championship field. The $20 million would include the championship field,” Ostrowski explained.
Other benefits of a public-private partnership include the use of the facility by parceling out the burden of bringing in tournaments.
“The Southern Roots Baseball Complex is looking to use the facility during the daytime hours and during the week, as well as the weekends for tournament play,” said Ostrowski. “Whereas a lot of the city needs come during the weekdays in the evening hours, so that would allow for free access through a city agreement for those fields during that point in time [to] maximize the use of those fields.”
If the fields are built, Ostrowski said the hope is to have around 32 tournaments at the facility each year.
“We’ve calculated, based off of the 32 tournaments, that they’re looking to bring in, it could have an impact of nearly $27, $28 million annually for the city,” Ostrowski emphasized. “It could lead to an additional 60,000 hotel room nights within the city. So, that could really have a nice tourism uptick within the city.”
There would still be potential to develop the remaining land in Midtown Park.
“It does still leave about 100, 120 acres on the front part along Midtown Drive, just east of Costco, for potential future compatible development,” noted Ostrowski. “That could be used for job creations, other industry-based types of facilities that can help spur additional economic growth for our city.”
The city, along with Southern Roots Baseball and ABA Services, will spend the next 30 days ironing details about finances and transferring the land in order to give council a clear picture about the development in order to vote on which fields to move forward with.
“The presentation we had last week was the first official presentation that the city council had heard in an organized way about this location, this site,” Mayor Nichols added. “There’s still a lot of details [to work] out about ownership, legality, fiscal, financial kinds of issues, and their commitment to do what they’re going to do, and our commitment to do what we need to do.”
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