Thankfully, by working together, we got the Data Center denied, but I feel they are about to make another $20 million mistake by putting the baseball fields where the city is currently proposing them. The Veterans Park plan is terrible. It only allows for three fields, and one is… unique, to say it politely. We desperately need more than three fields, as you cannot even host tournaments with only three. We will lose out on finally giving our baseball parents a tournament at home, as well as lose out on all the revenue that these tournaments generate for the city. Let them use that land to expand all the rectangular field sports that are currently there, if needed. That location is right on the Bryan city limits, and they are reaping most of the revenue generated by the tournaments at our fields. Multiple hotels and businesses have been created just across the street in Bryan to support the number of people who utilize the rectangular field sports. Our $20 million investment, the income produced, and the businesses it could potentially bring should benefit the residents of the City of College Station, as we are the ones paying for it.
Here's a better idea: now that we have the 200 acres back, instead of building a data center, let's use part of that space to bring the project back to Midtown just like originally planned. This would finally be a win for the residents who live in the area and are always left out. There is plenty of room to build more than just three fields, and it's something that won't negatively affect the park and walking trails they just finished. It will bring value to our community. We can also strategically design the fields to promote tournaments and tourism, which will pay for the park through economic benefits. I understand that the City Council is already pretty far down the path. But they proved that they will listen to residents if enough of us reach out. I think we need to let them hear from us again before it's too late. Does anyone know how much time we have? I have heard they are having a Council workshop on October 9th to discuss the future of Midtown this would a great place to discuss further, does anyone have any more info on the Workshop?

My preference is to let the private market handle it and give me the tax reduction.

Ha. I get that completely, but the city already has the money earmarked we just need to make sure it is spent thoughtfully.

Honestly, its tiresome of talking about CS needing more baseball fields. The city isn't serious about hosting tournaments, and I can't figure that out. You have no issue with bragging about the girls softball tourneys that roll through town and generate all of this added spending at hotels, restaurants, etc. You have no issue with soccer tourneys. You have no issue with having the 7-on-7 tourneys. But you show virtually no desire for baseball.

We are basically in the middle of Austin, Houston, Waco and go ahead and say Dallas. We would draw some really good tournaments. Franklin says hello, btw.

B/CS is only growing and tournament baseball is not slowing down anytime soon. Reap the benefits for our cities that every other city outside of here is already doing.

If we cant build new fields, Why cant CS make all the existing right sized youth fields in town multi-use turf (or even as is and just add ways to move the base lengths), and baseball can use temporary mounds and softball can put in temporary fences and then everyone can use all the fields.

The big issue to me is local kids having to practice late into school nights because we don't have enough youth baseball fields to support our Little League participants. Between the LL and tons of travel teams needing practice space (Travis fields seem booked every night, YAY Bryan), one larger new youth baseball venue here would open up availability and bring tons of teams and money to town. Every weekend in the spring and work tournies or double header leagues in the fall with the Home football schedule.

I wish this town valued youth baseball. And I have no problems with some % of my taxes finally being used for youth baseball instead of soccer or softball

These fields will reliably bring in very little relative to the capital and maintenance costs. You are getting worked up over something comparatively minor. The issue isn't whether the pittance is split with Bryan.

Those fields drive next to no traffic compared to the accumulated day-in-day-out stuff that has nothing to do with Veterans. My economist brain suspects:

• Starbucks and TXB are not making most of their money because people flock from Veterans park. They make their money because they are on the right as you go from a bunch of residential to the center of town.
• The hotels aren't there because they are across from Veterans. They are there because they are off the highway and on University which is a pretty easy way to get into town (see where all the other hotels are) and the land is relatively cheap compared to the other side of the highway.
• If you take a look at the other businesses there, they probably aren't getting a bunch of walk-ins from Veterans visitors (Hudson @ University businesses, bank, photographer, fitness joint, probably not the stuff at Physicians either).

The Veterans business is probably a nice little bonus. But if that business were all they had, I suspect that area would be almost as desolate as the area surrounding the Brazos Expo.

Hopefully nobody is under the illusion that the point of this thing is to bring in a return on the citizens "investment." It isn't bringing in but diddly for the taxpayers of either town.

InB4 goofs who apparently can't use a calculator come in saying "that is not true." Any reasonable estimate shows we are talking tax revenues that are order of magnitude less than the costs. In addition to calculations you can do on your own, CS city internals say it, Bombers' figures they submitted to Bryan say it. And if we wanted to get the figure's from Bryan's 3 tournament fields, I am sure they would say the same.

If our esteemed council folk want to spend $20 million on ballfields, I'm not going to stop them. Clearly if thousands of voters saying "no" isn't going to stop them, I can't. But I hope nobody legitimately thinks that there will be anywhere near offsetting benefits from the economic impact.

Maybe they could put the Bombers in Midtown. Isn't the guy who owns them on the board of the MMD?!

It's kinda crazy that 3 hotels and Starbucks and TXB are located directly across from Veterans nowhere else up and down university. Could be a coincidence.

Ask all the baseball parents how much they spend during out of town tournaments. It's not nothing.

I beg to differ. Those fields bring in thousands of hotel room nights throughout the entire summer. The hotels were built across from it intentionally. And the city makes an extra tax on hotels called hotel occupancy tax. That extra tax goes into a fund that can be used for any project that will promote tourism, such as more fields. Plus all the extra sales tax the city gets from the sports tourists buying meals, fuel, supplies, etc. It's a big business, which is why many cities are spending hundreds of millions on sports tourism fields across texas.

Honestly don't care about revenue at this time, more a public good for little league .. 7 fields in CS for all youth is not enough

Reel Aggies said:

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It's kinda crazy that 3 hotels and Starbucks and TXB are located directly across from Veterans nowhere else up and down university. Could be a coincidence.

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lolwut? I am seeing 2 other Starbucks and a Dutch Bros. on University and something like 10 hotels

How many thousands of hotel room nights (10k?) at what average price ($150)? Multiply that by .07 to get the tax revenue. Are we talking something like $100k? That's not much compared to the capital and maintenance costs. And during June the bombers are going to get the big field and they won't be paying much for it.

You're making his point. He is obviously talking about that side of Hwy6. Of course there are restaurants and hotels close to the university. The university is what draws them in. Same reason why there are 3 hotels right on top of each other directly across the street from Veterans Park, that's the draw. Not rocket science.

Youth baseball desperately needs the fields. The two that also accommodate soccer fields will probably have temporary fencing to be set up as the outfield fencing during games. (They already do this at Central softball fields to adjust for different ages.)

Bombers only get it for their game. Games can be played before or after. We are talking about 30,000 room nights on the low end and 50,000+ could be achieved with a good number of fields. There are many case studies out there that show these tournaments bring in millions of dollars per year to the city who hosts them. Take that revenue and bond against it, and you can capitalize a lot of fields.

Every time we go take the boy to his soccer game at VP on Saturday my wife has me drive through Starbucks. I work too late to take him to his practices during the week but my credit card statement tells me Saturday isn't the only day she does that.

If the city's budget were up to Brian Alg, we'd have the worse pot holes in the world all in the name of "less government"

Perfect Game just spent $7 million to buy 6 fields in dripping springs. Let them build them and run them even if we have to donate the land. That should be the extent of the cities investment in fields.

If they want to build them they should rent them at a rate that covers the investment and the maintenance. Perfect game is making $30,000 a weekend at least off those fields. Rental shouldn't be $3500 to give someone a $20 million dollar asset.

The idea that if the city council doesn't get to do these Macy's-style misadventures, somehow the roads are going to fall apart is insane.

Extremism in all its forms is the most insane idea of all.

Parks are generally not profitable, and that's ok. HOT money is a side effect, not a driver. And frankly not one I care to maximize. We don't need to build fields for kids of other cities. We need to build them for kids of this city.

The city isn't a business, and allowing it to act like one got us Macy's.

Brian Alg said:

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The idea that if the city council doesn't get to do these Macy's-style misadventures, somehow the roads are going to fall apart is insane.

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Comparing building baseball fields to buying Macy's is ridiculous

He was obviously referring to the fact that any time the city wants to spend money on anything, you come on here to whine and complain, so where does it stop for you?

Nothing should be added to Veterans until Harvey and 6 makes sense. We are at Veterans park more evenings than not and often find it quicker to go out of our way to get home.

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.

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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Not sure what kind of hotel you are staying at, but we can rarely find one under $225-$250 when we are out of town for tournaments.

Why do you think local kids would never get to use the fields? You think all the local kids only play little league? Little league does not play in the weekends. They would still get to use the fields during the week. There are hundreds of local kids that play travel ball that would use these fields on the weekend.

Brian Alg said:

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Those fields drive next to no traffic compared to the accumulated day-in-day-out stuff that has nothing to do with Veterans. My economist brain suspects:

• Starbucks and TXB are not making most of their money because people flock from Veterans park. They make their money because they are on the right as you go from a bunch of residential to the center of town.
• The hotels aren't there because they are across from Veterans. They are there because they are off the highway and on University which is a pretty easy way to get into town (see where all the other hotels are) and the land is relatively cheap compared to the other side of the highway.
• If you take a look at the other businesses there, they probably aren't getting a bunch of walk-ins from Veterans visitors (Hudson @ University businesses, bank, photographer, fitness joint, probably not the stuff at Physicians either).

The Veterans business is probably a nice little bonus. But if that business were all they had, I suspect that area would be almost as desolate as the area surrounding the Brazos Expo.

Hopefully nobody is under the illusion that the point of this thing is to bring in a return on the citizens "investment." It isn't bringing in but diddly for the taxpayers of either town.

InB4 goofs who apparently can't use a calculator come in saying "that is not true." Any reasonable estimate shows we are talking tax revenues that are order of magnitude less than the costs. In addition to calculations you can do on your own, CS city internals say it, Bombers' figures they submitted to Bryan say it. And if we wanted to get the figure's from Bryan's 3 tournament fields, I am sure they would say the same.

If our esteemed council folk want to spend $20 million on ballfields, I'm not going to stop them. Clearly if thousands of voters saying "no" isn't going to stop them, I can't. But I hope nobody legitimately thinks that there will be anywhere near offsetting benefits from the economic impact.

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I am admittedly not an economist, however, I am probably second only to you in my opposition to tax and spend government. That said, I live in the area North of Veteran's park and frequent that TXB store regularly. I can tell you this with certainty- when there are events at Veterans, the hotels, TXB, Starbucks et al are jam packed with people who are there for the events. If I went to TXB 10 weekday mornings in a row I wouldn't see the amount of folks I see in there in one event weekend morning. Not even close.

Again I am not an expert but couching it is a "small" amount of their business is inaccurate. Matter of fact my wife and I have talked about opening a "Greek Hamburger Stand" over there just to benefit from that influx.

I don't want taxpayer dollars underwriting every dream our city staff dreams up or conjures a need for, but let's not diminish the very real $$ impact that facility has on the balance sheets of those hotels and businesses. They all presumably did their market research before opening geographically connect to a super park.

Respectfully my 2 pennies

Quote:

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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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Totally agree. We need to think long term for our kids and the kids of future Aggies. Midtown as a location for the fields has the space to grow and add more fields later, even for other sports or ideas.