College Station City Council is expected to vote Feb. 26 on issuing a letter of intent that will serve as a roadmap for negotiations with The Station Baseball LLC, a development firm that has pitched creating an 80-acre, nine-field baseball complex in the Midtown area, Michael Ostrowski, College Station’s chief development officer, said in an interview.
The proposal was first brought before the council in October and entails the city and a private developer working together to maximize baseball field access for local and traveling groups.
“We certainly are committed to building the baseball fields,” Mayor John Nichols said in an interview. “With [t]his partnership, we’ll get a lot more fields and more access for Little League and senior leagues and also have what we believe is a viable economic development opportunity for that area.”
Two-minute impact
The baseball complex is proposed for city-owned property in Midtown, a 200-acre vacant tract northeast of Costco off Midtown Drive. The proposal first came from a group called Southern Roots, which city officials said has now incorporated as The Station Baseball.
While the letter of intent has yet to outline parameters for the city and The Station Baseball to move forward in negotiations, the general idea is that the city would lease 80 acres to The Station Baseball for a nine-field baseball complex, Ostrowski said. The developer would construct all nine fields, with the city having use of the fields during weekday evenings.
The city hosts many competitive sports events as well as recreational leagues and has needed more baseball fields for several years, Nichols said.
“The underlying motivation was we need to build fields for Little League and senior league and expand our capacity in that area,” he said.
The city’s involvement is expected to total roughly $20 million, Ostrowski said. The city would extend road and water access to the site, with design bids being sent for council consideration likely in March, said Jennifer Cain, College Station’s director of capital projects.
Per initial discussions, the complex would include four full-size fields, five smaller ballfields, restrooms and concessions. Another portion of land would be sold to the developer for hospitality use, such as cabins available for rent, Ostrowski said. A site plan is still in the works.
One of the full-size fields would be designed to be a championship field with more seating capacity and serve as the new home of the Brazos Valley Bombers, Ostrowski said.
The Brazos Valley Bombers are a summer collegiate baseball team that plays in the Texas Collegiate League and was located out of Travis Major Field in Bryan for nearly two decades until announcing its intent to move to College Station in 2025.
“The Bombers have entered into formal discussions with the city of College Station to relocate operations and become the anchor tenant of a brand-new baseball stadium,” the Brazos Valley Bombers wrote in a May letter to fans. “We’re grateful to College Station leadership for their belief in our mission and their desire to grow the game and invest in sports tourism across the region.”
Some context
The 200-acre Midtown tract, which is zoned for light industrial use, was intended by the city to become a business park and primary job generator, Ostrowski said, but development has not taken off yet.
Nichols said part of the land was slated to be a data center, but after more than a year of negotiations, council members froze that idea.
At the same time, the city has been planning additional baseball fields at various parks; one proposal wasn’t feasible due to the soil quality at a proposed site, and plans to add three fields to the Veterans Park and Athletic Complex were halted once the idea for more fields in Midtown was brought to the council, Nichols said.
“We’ve needed these fields for quite a while. We’ve built a number of soccer fields, we have a fair number of softball fields, but we’ve not added any capacity with respect to Little League or Senior Leagues,” he said. “Obviously, we’re already a couple years behind schedule ... but this new opportunity to build a much bigger complex and have it all together at one place was very attractive to the council.”
In addition to cost savings by partnering with a private developer for construction, city officials said the Midtown proposal will yield an economic boost for College Station by spurring other development in Midtown and adding to tourism.
“It provides the opportunity for significant injection of tourism into our economy in terms of sports tourism with all the tournaments that they would plan to host on this complex,” Ostrowski said.
Looking ahead
Should the council approve the letter of intent Feb. 26, the next step is to negotiate an economic development agreement to further outline the terms of the private-city partnership, Ostrowski said. The developer will also be required to perform a market study and prove that the project is feasible.
He said the baseball complex could be slated to open by the 2028 season.
“We’re going to be moving as quickly as we can,” he said.
Editor's note: This article's headline was updated to remove the mention of the project being $20 million. While the city's contributions are expected to amount to $20 million, the project in its totality will cost more.
