A little more than two weeks ago, it seemed almost certain that if there were to be an Austin baseball complex, it would be at the Cook Farm-Austin Business Park site north of Austin.

Friday, July 07, 2000

A little more than two weeks ago, it seemed almost certain that if there were to be an Austin baseball complex, it would be at the Cook Farm-Austin Business Park site north of Austin.

However, the proposed Austin baseball complex has a fickle nature, moving from Todd Park to the Cook Farm and now to Riverland Community College. According to Park and Recreation Director Denny Maschka, Riverland looks to be the favored site.

"Hopefully, the end result will be the best solution," Maschka said Thursday, the day after the Riverland possibility had been well received by the Austin Park and Recreation Board members. "I think the primary emphasis will be on the Riverland location – it seems like it will be the cheaper option."

Riverland President Gary Rhodes was not available for comment, but Maschka said the college was willing to make the land available – possibly as a long-term lease deal – and liked the idea of getting potential students more familiar with the college campus. The three additional diamonds would be constructed north and west of the current diamond.

Costs still are the big unknown. City staff had guessed it could cost up to $1 million to put a complex on 24 acres of the Cook Farm, and Maschka said he thought the Riverland site could run as high as that, although probably closer to $750,000. At Riverland, however, the complex would contain four diamonds in total – adding the city’s three to the existing diamond already there – and at Cook Farm it would only be three. Nor would it cost as much to extend utilities to the Riverland site.

The Austin Public School District, whose dilemma about its Wescott Field baseball diamond started the ball rolling, is a part of the discussion, but not necessarily a player.

"We’re waiting to see where the best location is for the ball diamond we’re relocating from Wescott Field," schools Superintendent Jim Hess said. "We’re interested and supportive, but the decision at the end of the day is the city’s. It’s their ball field.

"We’ll certainly be big users," Hess added. "Personally, I like the idea of concentrating the ballfields in one area; it makes more sense for scheduling tournaments and conference play."

Hess said the school district would help with construction costs. Right now the district has committed $68,000 that it will borrow from the city; that money is to be paid back once the Wescott Field fund raising is under way. Maschka is hoping the district will up its share to $100,000.

At the moment, the high school baseball teams use Marcusen Field and the two fields at Wescott. They also used the Riverland field when Marcusen was flooded for play in June.

"If they’re (Riverland) happy with the idea, we’d be thrilled to work with them," AHS activities director Naomi Hatfield said. "We’ve worked with Riverland on smaller things: we share some tennis courts, our soccer team has worked out over there; plus we used their diamond when Marcusen was flooded this year. They’ve always been very cooperative."

"We’re going to try to pull this together so we can have one diamond ready by the spring of 2001," Maschka said. "If that doesn’t happen, we’ll have to help the high school work between the college and Marcusen. It depends a lot on what we have to do to make this workable."

Mayor Bonnie Rietz also is supportive of the Riverland location.

"Riverland would be convenient for both Austin residents and people coming from out of town," Rietz said. "We have to go through the steps now and see if its feasible."

The next step in the ever-evolving baseball complex will be for Maschka to get a topographic map of the area and then an estimate of the costs of developing it into a ballpark.

Maschka said he hoped to have the figures in place by the end of July, when he would present them to the City Council’s finance committee.