Scott Cronk, executive director of the Lake Travis Youth Association, discusses the future of the organization’s ballfields with area residents at the Sonesta Bee Cave hotel Aug. 8.[/caption]

Development company Hill Country Texas Galleria LLC announced Aug. 8 it plans to purchase the 19-acre Field of Dreams tract used by the Lake Travis Youth Association at 13909 W. Hwy. 71, Bee Cave.

Group co-owner Adrian Overstreet discussed the purchase plans at a reception at Sonesta Bee Cave, a hotel owned by Overstreet. He said his goal is to have the transaction completed by the end of 2016.

Terms

The property will be gifted by Hill Country Texas to the city of Bee Cave, which will then lease the tract back to LTYA to be used as ballfields, he said. If the property were ever to be used as anything other than parkland, ownership of the property would revert back to Hill Country Texas, he said. LTYA will pay the city or a third party to maintain the fields, and the money the organization receives from the property sale will be used to renovate the Field of Dreams facilities, including restoring its bathrooms and possibly improving the parking area.

“One of our high hopes in this is that the LTYA will be able to take away some of this money and put it into an endowment so that in the future they will be fiscally sound for many, many years to come,” Overstreet said.

The property has been listed for sale for more than four years, and many area residents—including those in the adjacent The Homestead neighborhood—have stated during Bee Cave City Council meetings that they are concerned the tract would be developed for commercial or office use instead of parkland.

Overstreet said, in exchange for the gift, his group would receive impervious cover credits that could offset other restrictions on the investors’ future developments in the city.

Although Overstreet declined to state the price his group paid for the property, LTYA Executive Director Scott Cronk said it was about one-third of the tract’s market value.

“We are entertaining this deal for a fraction of the market value [of the property],” Cronk said. “Part of the reason is that, as a nonprofit, our charter is to deliver sports to the kids. The reality of it is if it was your business or if it was anyone’s individual business who was concerned about building wealth, you would never do this. As a nonprofit with a charter of delivering sports to the kids, it’s a service to the community.”

Lakeway tract

In 2014, the city of Lakeway purchased a tract on Bee Creek Road to possibly serve as LTYA’s future home. City officials stated they would work with Travis County toward creating a bond election that would fund new fields and facilities on the tract, with LTYA using the money it would gain from the sale of its Bee Cave site to add further improvements.

Cronk said with this new development, the organization would retain both the West Hwy. 71 and potential Bee Creek tracts.

“We’re growing so fast that the kids pretty much need all the space they can get, especially with the wear and tear we are putting on the fields,” he said. “So, at this point, we hope to keep the utilization of the current fields.”

Gift considerations

Under Texas law, Overstreet said Bee Cave must approve whether it will accept the gift. If the city chooses not to accept the property gift, he said his group would not conclude the real estate transaction.

Overstreet said the proposal was constructed so the city would not incur any costs in the transaction.

“If the city says ‘no,’ we’ll just take our money and go elsewhere,” he said.

Marie Lowman, a Bee Cave City Council member and a resident of The Homestead, said Bee Cave will need to investigate the gift’s potential impact on the city.

“I love the idea that there may be an opportunity that [the LTYA tract] will remain parkland,” she said. “Since I ran for council, one of the things that was really important to me was connectivity and parks and trails.”

Lowman said that from what she has heard about the proposal so far, the agreement could help enhance connectivity throughout the city while establishing parkland for LTYA’s use.

“But I think there’s quite a bit that we need to really fully vet and understand before decisions are made about the future of that property,” she said.

The city already has expenses to maintain Central Park, located on Bee Cave Parkway, and the new transaction would need to be reviewed, including incurring possible maintenance expenses, she said.

“The big gap in all of this is with the city of Bee Cave right now and making sure that they support us,” Cronk said.