Using midtown for baseball makes a lot of sense. I just don't want to build a baseball mecca of 20 fields when we only need 6(?). I care exactly the same about sports tourism dollars as I do about event venue tourism dollars. The burdens from the visitors outweigh the dollars they bring.

We can't even place or time traffic lights correctly. We have no business importing traffic.

Brian Alg said:

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I'll give you $10 if you can show me how you got to 30k room nights from 3 fields using reasonable assumptions.

Using 30 team tournaments with 20 required room nights per team for 20 tournaments per year, which is stretching the limits of reasonability, gives 12k.

I cannot overstate how flimsy the argument is for chasing tourism dollars. Even if you used 30k, which is probably at least 2x too big. 30k x $150 x 7% is $315k. Nowhere near what the costs are. And that's assuming local kids never get to use the fields during prime time unless they are in a tournament.

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Yeah I'm not understanding the part about 'the local kids not getting to use the fields in prime time'

First of all, tournaments happen throughout the entire year, not just the summer. Now, prime time for high school ball is summer, but all of the other ages play all the time.

We have enough orgs in town that between them all, they would probably be full all the time during the week with practices. Then, I'm guessing the majority of the local orgs would have tourneys, and you could also pull some orgs from out of town.

You have to understand, organizations like Twelve, The Bucks, BV Renegades, etc. have several teams. Some range from 7u or 8u all the way to high school teams. Then within those ages, there can be a couple of teams. (For example: you can have a 13u Twelve Maroon team, 13u Twleve white team, and maybe even one more….and that's just one age level with one organization).

"The burdens from the visitors outweigh the dollars they bring."

If this were true, no city anywhere would want or work for any tourism. This community needs tourism very badly, and it actually needs to work harder to earn it that most others. There's almost no reason to visit here besides TAMU. For our economy to thrive and grow, tourism is necessary. The seasonality of this town puts businesses out of business every single summer and January over and over again.

So, I haven't weighed in on this one, but I'd rather have baseball fields, and preserving the greenway than light industrial anything on that piece of property.

Hornbeck said:

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So, I haven't weighed in on this one, but I'd rather have baseball fields, and preserving the greenway than light industrial anything on that piece of property.

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Agree!

PrimeCSTX said:

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I cannot overstate how beneficial sports tourism is for cities. Tournaments are in the summer, and prime time for local kids is during the school year.
We agree the 3 field plan at Veterans is a bad idea. We are pushing to move them to the Midtown land where they have room to build as many fields as we need. The perfect game is the leader in baseball tournaments and they say they will generate at least 50,000 hotel room nights in a 130 day lease period for a 12 field park. And, it's not just about hotel tax, think if all the restaurants who benefit and also charge sales tax. For every 2 people in a hotel room, which might really be 3 or 4, they are spending at least $100 per day in meals. Plus everything else they buy while they're here. It's big business for the city and our local businesses. Plus that's just the added value, the city needs baseball fields my original post is why spend the money to try to squeeze in a few of them at veterans park when we can do it the right way in Midtown.

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Tournaments are year round.

There is a poster on the GB right now who is traveling to softball tournaments at least every other weekend.

A former co-worker used all of her vacation days to travel on Fridays to out of town tournaments for her son that played travel ball or select ball or whatever it was called. They were always pulling their camper somewhere and going to stay out of town so they didn't have to eat the cost of a hotel every weekend.

It's not just the summers.

australopithecus robustus said:

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"The burdens from the visitors outweigh the dollars they bring."

If this were true, no city anywhere would want or work for any tourism. This community needs tourism very badly, and it actually needs to work harder to earn it that most others. There's almost no reason to visit here besides TAMU. For our economy to thrive and grow, tourism is necessary. The seasonality of this town puts businesses out of business every single summer and January over and over again.

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I just don't agree with subsidizing business at the cost of citizen QoL. The city should have one boss, the citizens. Any additional goals distract from the primary mission.

EliteElectric said:

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wait, wut?

Where was the Main Event announcement?

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So, the 28 acres by Costco is slated for development by a group that is planning on bringing in Main Event, a pickleball bar and grill restaurant, and a couple more restaurants. They didn't make the city sign an NDA, so that's out there. Yancy talked about it on his campaign Bookface, I feel like, or maybe at the data center town hall.

I've been at City Council a couple weeks straight and I picked it up somewhere. I'm planning on going on Oct 9th as well to talk about baseball / business park. All the HOA leaders in the immediate area have been working on it.

I don't care who's "idea" it is as long as "light industrial anything" doesn't get plonked 700 feet from our houses.

Common Sense.

I feel like, if this is done right, it can make a lot of folks in South CS happy. It should spur more development of commercial space, meet baseball needs locally, attract out of towners for tournaments, and help spur more growth in Midtown proper, thus eliminating the double tax that those poor folks have to pay.

Its time to stop letting city staff dictate what happens. We the people have the power, I saw that two weeks ago, I saw that last night when they agreed to not expand and extend Pebble Creek Parkway. We have to stay active and stay on top of whats going on. We can't afford to let the same folks that brought us Macy's continue to drive the ship.

Hornbeck said:

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I feel like, if this is done right, it can make a lot of folks in South CS happy. It should spur more development of commercial space, meet baseball needs locally, attract out of towners for tournaments, and help spur more growth in Midtown proper, thus eliminating the double tax that those poor folks have to pay.

It's time to stop letting city staff dictate what happens. We the people have the power, I saw that two weeks ago, I saw that last night when they agreed to not expand and extend Pebble Creek Parkway. We have to stay active and stay on top of whats going on. We can't afford to let the same folks that brought us Macy's continue to drive the ship.

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This!! Well said!!

Main Event would be awesome they are great for kids/families. You know, like the Jim Lewis concept at Macys would have been

EliteElectric said:

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Main Event would be awesome they are great for kids/families. You know, like the Jim Lewis concept at Macys would have been

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I'd be lying if I didn't say I had the exact same thought, Elite. Blue parachute for you.

BucketofBalls99 said:

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drred4 said:

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Who designed this concept for these fields, etc?

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I was wondering this myself. They are horrible!!

That one looks like it has a bit of the Polo Grounds in it….500+' to straight away center! Smh

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The one's at Veteran's Park? That was a city plan, and yes, they look terrible. Not to mention that there is not enough to have tournaments.

Midtown has the space to build them right.

Stucco said:

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Using midtown for baseball makes a lot of sense. I just don't want to build a baseball mecca of 20 fields when we only need 6(?). I care exactly the same about sports tourism dollars as I do about event venue tourism dollars. The burdens from the visitors outweigh the dollars they bring.

We can't even place or time traffic lights correctly. We have no business importing traffic.

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The best thing about LL and tournament baseball is it gets thousands of kids out of the house, off their phones/internet, not playing video games, and interacting with other kids building on team concepts. Baseball is big in Texas. In today's society that's a huge win.

It's also big business. Big big business.

Oh, I know. I have a son who played college baseball. The journey is long. But, only about 6-7% of kids get that chance and with the transfer portal, free juco years being rewarded back to players, etc it's getting harder for HS players to make the next step. It's important to see the holistic part of this. I firmly believe children need a passion - whatever it is and participate in it fully.

I'm part of a FB group for the Greater Midtown area, and a group member posted mock ups that the developer for the Midtown Business Center created based on feedback he's seen on this feed as well as across social media groups. So far, the comments there are highly positive amongst the Midtown residents.

The images include the Town Lake Drive extension to Highway 6 for better connectivity, baseball fields on the city's land on Midtown Drive, a city aquatic center in Midtown City Center, and Independence Park and Lick Creek Trail being preserved.

I know some on here are concerned regarding the cost, however, if the City is going to do it anyway I believe we should at least get the most bang for our buck. Putting fields at Veterans is expensive and the growth potential is not there, whereas in Midtown there is potential for at least 12 fields from what that developer sees. I highly doubt that the City would build in 12 new fields off the bat, but at least the potential is there!

I used to live around the Veterans Park area, and I've seen first hand the tourism competitive sports tournaments and events those soccer and softball fields have brought in over the years. Tourism from putting the fields in Midtown could be monumental in bringing the commercial development for the residents paying into the special taxing district, a public good benefit for the surrounding neighborhoods, and could be the spark that ignites an area of town that is more family friendly and less student focused.

Just my $0.02, here's the pictures I found on FB!
https://f5s-img.s3.amazonaws.com/000/69/53/695336721a619a75419f843f1d65e3c09dafea91_1431740_u325156.jpg

https://f5s-img.s3.amazonaws.com/000/48/c3/48c39f1b191f68e57997f99de764b403856e51f1_419279_u325156.jpg
https://f5s-img.s3.amazonaws.com/000/27/1a/271a57184402bfc840ddc1734d5578d0dfb56160_2428195_u325156.jpg