CORVALLIS, OREGON – Dan Lach, right, puts his arm around his son Nathan, 10, during a West Coast League baseball game featuring the Corvallis Knights and Kitsap Bluejackets on July 13, 2011, at Goss Stadium in Corvallis. Since talks fell through with the Northwest League, Milwaukie is in discussions with the West Coast League, a summer league for college players aspiring to play in the pros. Milwaukie’s attempt to lure a Class-A Northwest League baseball team to the
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CORVALLIS, OREGON – Dan Lach, right, puts his arm around his son Nathan, 10, during a West Coast League baseball game featuring the Corvallis Knights and Kitsap Bluejackets on July 13, 2011, at Goss Stadium in Corvallis. Since talks fell through with the Northwest League, Milwaukie is in discussions with the West Coast League, a summer league for college players aspiring to play in the pros. Milwaukie’s attempt to lure a Class-A Northwest League baseball team to the city may have failed, but the city is already in discussions with another league some say will provide the same entertainment and a similar caliber of baseball, all with a reduced price tag.
The city was prepared to spend up to $25 million on a 4,000-seat ballpark in the north industrial area for a minor league baseball team. A preliminary cost estimate to build a ballpark for a team in the West Coast League, which currently features nine teams of college players trying to break into the pros, is $10-12 million.
The West Coast League would need to form an ownership group to finance a new team before negotiations on the development and operation of the ballpark could start.
That new estimate was included in a detailed staff report released this week with an information packet for Milwaukie’s City Council meeting Aug. 7, when councilors will decide whether to continue attempts to attract baseball to the city.
“We can do all the things the Northwest League does in a stadium that is half the price or less and that’s really, really attractive to everybody in Milwaukie,” said West Coast League President Ken Wilson.
In a press release sent out by the city, Mayor Jeremy Ferguson said he is as determined as ever to have a team playing ball in Milwaukie by the time the Portland-Milwaukie light rail opens in September 2015.
“We think the NWL missed a golden opportunity here in Milwaukie, but we’re excited by the prospect of bringing a team from the West Coast League to town,” Ferguson said in the release.
However, Councilor Dave Hedges said he won’t support continuing the baseball project and moving forward with the West Coast League since there’s no indication that a West Coast League team would bring revenue to the city, and he said that was the goal of the project in the first place.
“In a situation where money was no object then it’s a good idea,” Hedges said. “But the whole premise was to increase revenue streams for the city and this just isn’t going to do it.”
Initial designs for the proposed Milwaukie single-A minor league baseball stadium. The city estimated a ballpark for a Northwest League team could bring $7.3 million to the city in the first year and up to $30 million a year in 30 years, but Community Development Director Kenny Asher said the same impact couldn’t be assumed for a West Coast League team.
“That is not to say that the economic and community impacts of having a WCL team in Milwaukie wouldn’t be positive, only that they haven’t been studied,” he wrote in the staff report.
Wilson said he first contacted the city in May to say he was interested in starting a team in Milwaukie. At the time, the city was still in negotiations with the Northwest League’s relocation committee, but those efforts were complicated by concurrent negotiations between the league and Hillsboro.
The league and Yakima Bears approved a deal with Hillsboro on June 8, and on June 26 the Hillsboro City Council approved the licensing contract terms.
Facing a July 31 deadline that the Milwaukie City Council set for committing a team, Northwest League President Bob Richmond sent a letter to the city June 22 saying it couldn’t make that happen.
“Discussions between the City and NWL broke off at that point,” Asher wrote in the staff report.
Despite its serious interest, the West Coast League also was unable to meet the deadline because it would have to start a new team.
Wilson said the quality of West Coast and Northwest league baseball is similar, with the main difference being age.
“We have the players when they’re still in college, and the Northwest League has them when they’re first out of college,” he said.
That means the league would be providing the same family entertainment Milwaukie is looking for, Wilson said. And because the league doesn’t require as many stadium amenities as minor league baseball — including indoor batting cages, dressing rooms and numerous offices — Wilson said it would come at a reduced cost to the city.
But Wilson said a city has yet to build a stadium solely to bring in a West Coast League team, and Milwaukie would be the first. Existing teams across the Pacific Northwest, including those in Corvallis, Bend and Klamath Falls, play in old minor league ballparks or college stadiums.
Before having discussions with the West Coast League, the City Council must first decide whether to continue into the fourth and final phase of the baseball project, which includes a ballot measure for a general obligation bond to finance a stadium.
The original goal was to have a team playing by 2014. If, however, the council begins negotiating with the West Coast League, the new target would be June 2015, according to the city’s press release.
The City Council will discuss how to proceed at its meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 7 in Milwaukie City Hall.