Cooperstown Dreams Park-Construction of Replica Fields, a youth baseball facility that will create exact copies of five Major League Baseball fields, hangs on Romeoville agreeing to sell $4 million in bonds, Village Manager Steve Gulden said Thursday.
Under a developer’s agreement still being negotiated, the village would sell the bonds on behalf of the ML&B partnership to be repaid over 25 years, Gulden said. ML&B, a group made up of three men with ties to the Chicago White Sox, would repay the loan from money generated by the teams using the 30-acre facility for weekend baseball tournaments and weeklong baseball camps, he said.
Beyond that, three other interconnected deals must be inked, he said.
Lewis University, which owns the property on which the facility is to be built, will lease the land to the village, he said. The village will then sublease the land to ML&B. And finally, ML&B will arrange with Lewis to provide the dorm space and food service needed for the 10- to 14-year-old players attending the camps, Gulden said.
The project’s concept plan was presented to the village board Wednesday night to a mostly positive reaction. The biggest concern centered on whether ML&B’s income projections were conservative enough.
Trustee Sue Micklevitz said she’d like to see information on the “break even” numbers rather than the best-case scenario, which has more than 14,000 boys using the facility next summer and as many as 24,000 by the fifth year. She also questioned how many teams coming to Replica Fields would be part of new tournaments and how many would be simply shifting from some other facility, such as Cooperstown Dreams Park in Cooperstown, N.Y., which is tied to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
One of the project’s selling points is that as many as 1,000 teams had to be turned away from Cooperstown last year because they lacked the facilities to accommodate them, according to a consultant’s report.
“The numbers look nice, don’t get me wrong,” Trustee Jose Chavez said. “(But) it needs to be self-sustaining.”
Gulden said the board is right to be conservative, and that information produced by C.H. Johnson Consulting Inc. would be adjusted to answer the trustees’ questions.
The benefits for Romeoville are multifold, according to the consultant’s report. More than $114 million in new spending will be generated by the facility; the area’s three major taxing bodies — the village, Will County and Valley View School District — stand to gain $1 million each in new taxes; 120 jobs will be created by the facility and at businesses such as hotels and restaurants; and it will enhance the public perception of Romeoville.
The village’s youth baseball teams will be allowed to use the fields Monday through Thursday from April to June as part of the deal, Gulden said. And the Lewis women’s softball team will play on a sixth field, which in the summer will be used for youth baseball championship games, he said.
The best calling card the facility will have is its three ML&B partners: Larry Gould, who is part owner of the Chicago White Sox and the United Center in Chicago; Mike Moyzis, general manager of baseball operations for the Chicago White Sox Academy; and Roger Bossard, head groundskeeper for the White Sox.
Bossard has been nicknamed the “Sod Master” for his expertise in designing and building natural grass golf courses and ball parks, including six of the last 10 Major League Baseball fields built in the United States. In this case, the five baseball fields that will be replicated are U.S. Cellular Field, Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium and Minute Maid Park.
In addition to U.S. tournaments, the facility will also be marketed as a potential host site for teams from Puerto Rico, Japan and the Caribbean, Moyzis told the board. Romeoville could become the “sports mecca of the Chicagoland area” with this and the International Ice Centre, said Moyzis, a Homer Glen resident.
If approved without major holdups, the facility will be ready for use next June, Gulden said.
No one need persuade Lisa Duffner that Replica Fields will be a success. Duffner, the treasurer/traveling director of the Romeoville Pony League and the Romeoville Rattlers Baseball Club, told the board that tournaments will be booked where they can get the “most bang for their buck” and where players can get “quality fields and experience.” This project meets both standards, she said.
“I participated in (a tournament) at Cooperstown this year, and even in this economy they will come and spend. Because believe me, we came and we spent,” Duffner said, laughing.
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