Sugar Land recently began the process to select a final design-build contractor for the construction of a minor league baseball stadium northeast of State Highway 6 and U.S. Highway 59. A final decision is expected in late January.
Architectural renderings of Sugar Land’s planned minor league baseball stadium have been prepared and are available at www.sugarlandtx.gov.
Architectural renderings have been prepared and are available at www.sugarlandtx.gov. Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2011 to have the stadium ready for opening day in April 2012.
Sugar Land City Council approved on Oct. 5 Lease and Development Agreements with Opening Day Partners, LLC to bring professional minor league baseball to Sugar Land. ODP – an experienced community-focused operator that emphasizes year-round community events and activities at their stadiums – will own and operate Sugar Land’s baseball team. ODP will be the owner of an Atlantic League expansion team in Sugar Land.
The $30 million stadium will be funded with a portion of sales tax revenues that may only be used for economic development purposes. No general fund tax dollars will be spent on the stadium. In addition to the stadium serving as a community amenity, a conservative cost-benefit analysis performed by Conventions, Sports & Leisure International conservatively estimates the project will provide an annual benefit of $7.7 million, or a return of $169 million over 30 years.
Sugarland is limitting public city rights to voters in MUD25 by denying to annex MUD 25, MUD that is privately own. Its a Houston proposal annexation plan of MUD 25!
I wonder the chances Sugar Land will want the area water district (MUD 25) to help provide services to this new stadium. Like they already do with the city’s airport and TXDOT building. Yet, Sugar Land refuses the request of the taxpayers in that district, which is to be eligible for future annexation into Sugar Land. Sugar Land won’t even ask Houston for an ETJ swap after the residents and district have requested this multiple times. Wonder how much the taxpayers of MUD 25 enjoy providing services to the city of Sugar Land only to be brushed-off by Sugar Land on this ETJ swap request time and time again.
Of course, who knows how serious MUD 25 is on this anyway since they keep conveniently expanding capacity to build more and more apartment complexes and ill-planned Houston-style development, rather than amenities that would actually be valuable to the taxpayers such as restaurants and retail, parks and trees, etc.
I agree. To alleviate this issue, I believe the ballpark should be put where it belongs, which is south of UHSL – the location used when the campaign and election for the referendum was done.
SLfortbender, this cannot happen. That is UH’s land and UH says a stadium will not allowed for that land use plan, which can be educational use only. I wonder why that wasn’t known from the very start. Anyway, I think the location northwest of Telfair will be fine, but city of Sugar Land needs to stop receiving services from Fort Bend MUD 25 unless they are going to give those taxpayers what they have asked for time and time again – eligibility for future annexation into Sugar Land.