The organization that owns the Edmonton Prospects has released details around what the team’s new home baseball field could look like.
The Prospects had announced they would be moving to Spruce Grove in 2022, after a different group led by a former Edmonton Oiler agreed to a 10-year lease to operate RE/MAX Field.
Gold Sports, which owns the Prospects, said Tuesday that it had partnered with Victor Moroz with the Metro Horizon Corp. to privately fund a new complex to host the team.
“I think an affordable fan-based ballpark would be amazing for this community.”
The land the Spruce Grove park would sit on is about 37 acres at Pioneer Road and Highway 16A, on the east edge of the city. About 20 acres of that would be developed for the park.
It would feature a retail district, micro-brewery pub, as well as an amphitheatre and condominiums.
“This design will allow us to bend the rules of a traditional ballpark and integrate into the surrounding neighbourhood, or conversely and uniquely, allow us to build the neighbourhood into the ballpark,” Gold Sports president Patrick Cassidy said.
“What’s exciting about it, is there will be a whole new sort of community that’ll start up right on the edge of Spruce Grove,” Moroz said.
Spruce Grove Mayor Stuart Houston said Wednesday that he believes the development will be embraced by the local community.
“We’re super excited about something like that coming to our city,” Houston said, adding that more than 850 kids in the Spruce Grove area are involved in baseball teams in some way.
“We have one of the top baseball programs in our area,” Houston said. “It kind of ties in nicely with this type of development coming to our city, and we’re super excited about the potential of it.
“How can you not be (excited) when you look at the drawings and renderings that have been presented?”
The next step, according to Gold Sports, will be working with Spruce Grove officials to amend city Area Structure Plans to allow for the complex, as well as planning road, drainage and other amenities for the massive project.
Houston said while the city has not been presented with development permits with the project, he believes local officials will be eager to work with the company to move the project forward.
Gold Sports said it hopes to open the park by 2022.
The 2020 Edmonton Prospects season was cancelled earlier this spring due to COVID-19.
The new team is set to take over and operate Edmonton’s RE/MAX Field when the current agreement expires on March 31, 2021.