Fredericksburg Baseball Negotiations with 'Specific Organization,' According to City Manager

Fredericksburg City Council and city staff are considering a proposal from a specific minor league team to bring baseball to Fredericksburg. 

"We are in active negotiations with a specific organization," City Manager Bev Cameron told Patch on Wednesday.  "We plan to conduct a public hearing July 9 during the regular City Council meeting to provide general information to the public," he said. Cameron said he could not give any specifics at this time because city council's meetings have been in closed session.

Richard Tremblay, Fredericksburg's Assistant Director for Economic Development, told WHAG Television in April that community leaders had been looking into baseball for Fredericksburg over the last year.

The Economic Development Authority voted this spring to spend up to $27,000 on two studies. When they received the Multi-Use Stadium Market Analysis Report last month from contractor B & D Venues, they were told Fredericksburg is "an ideal location" for a baseball team. The conclusion was Fredericksburg's demographics would support a ballpark and minor league team.

"The EDA has been working on a parallel track to what council is doing," Cameron said. He said the market analysis and financial analysis studies paid for by the EDA are being used in current negotiations.

Speculation is that the team in question is the Hagerstown Suns . The team wants a new stadium in Hagerstown or a new city in which to play.

Not everyone is as positive about baseball in Fredericksburg as B & D Venues.  "Study after study has concluded that sports stadiums do not improve local economies," A. Barton Hinkle wrote in the Richmond Times Dispatch about Fredericksburg's eyes on baseball. "Think tanks across the ideological spectrum — from the laissez-faire Cato Institute to the centrist Brookings Institution to the left-wing Center for American Progress — all have reached that same conclusion."

"The Gwinnett study — like the one for Fredericksburg — pitched the stadium at a cost of less than $30 million," Hinkle wrote. "By the time construction was finished, the price tag had risen to $64 million. Ticket prices soared. Attendance fell so far short of projections that the new stadium often is half-empty. Revenue from parking fees tanked. The ancillary development that was supposed to materialize — didn’t. Last year the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that while “Gwinnett officials (had) said the stadium would pay for itself, it hasn’t."

In April Trembly estimated the cost of building a multi-use stadium in Fredericksburg at $25 million.

What do you think?  Should Fredericksburg build a multi-use stadium and host a minor league baseball team?  Tell us in the comments section below.

Related Story: City Conducting Study for $25M Stadium

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