After plans for a College Baseball Hall of Fame fell through last week, Mayor Pope said there aren’t concrete plans for the land.
While the news is definitely a disappointment, Pope said it’s not a complete setback.
“We’d hate to see it go somewhere else, but if that can happen and they can find somewhere else that they can sustain it and they leave their headquarters here, then we think that would be great.”
The facility broke ground in 2015 and was originally slated to have a full-sized baseball field.
“The ballpark costs more to maintain, so that means you have to be able to cash flow that too as well as the hall of fame itself, so it probably adds to their [the foundation’s] challenge,” Pope said, “But I also understand how important having a baseball field would be to the baseball hall of fame.”
The foundation shared their defeat, saying the number one concern for any location would be sustainability.
“I don’t see why a city of this size couldn’t support this, but you start putting in a lot of those variables; regionally isolated market of 300,000 people…none of those alone is the reason, but they all make it a little bit tough,” Executive Director Mike Gustafson said.
Mayor Pope said he’ll continue to view the newly-found space as an opportunity for the city.
“The Cowboy Symposium has been there for the last 20-plus years. No plans for the land yet, we’ll look for highest and best use for the land, but for now it will remain as much-needed green space in downtown.”
