The Milwaukee Brewers and a local developer are proposing a $90-million Gilbert spring-training complex, as the team looks at a move back to the east side of the Valley.
The Brewers currently train at Maryvale Baseball Park in Phoenix — the only Cactus League team to actually train in Phoenix. The team has been talking with Phoenix officials about upgrades to Maryvale Baseball Park, but there is only so much that can be done to the land-locked facility in terms of associated development.
In Gilbert, however, there is the potential for associated development at a new project near Loop 202 at Lindsay and Germann roads. While the talks are preliminary between the city, the team and developer LGE Design Build, some serious numbers are being thrown around: a $90-million complex with a 7,500-seat ballpark, six practice fields, 55,000 square-foot clubhouse and a 10,000 square-foot office, all done in time for 2019.
According to developer David Sellers, a development in Gilbert would allow the city to share in the money generated by spring training. Currently Phoenix-area spring-training camps are clustered in Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe and several communities in the west side of the Valley. The southeast corner of the Valley, in general, doesn’t share in the spring-training bounty. From the Arizona Republic:
LGE Design Build also proposed a 13-acre village next to the facility that would include 220 hotel rooms, 85,000 square feet of office space and 50,000 square feet of retail. It would cost an estimated $70 million to build, although it’s unclear who would front that cost.
According to an LGE Design Build presentation, the restaurants and stores in the village would generate $27 million in taxable sales per year and the office space would give way to 437 “high-end, professional job opportunities.”
The Brewers would also guarantee more than $1 million per year in room stays for the team at the hotel.
The village would have a $90.1 million annual economic impact when completed, according to LGE Design Build.
Interestingly, the Brewers trained from 1986 to 1997 at Compadre Stadium in Chandler, some seven miles from the proposed Gilbert facility.
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