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Fans asked to pick stadium site for Reno baseball team
Monday February 10, 2003
By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press Writer
RENO, Nev. (AP) Leaders of a group trying to bring a minor
league baseball team to the Reno-Sparks area are asking local fans
to vote on four possible sites for the new stadium, including one
in downtown Reno.
The group, Sierra Nevada Baseball, launched a Web site Monday to
gauge support for the siting of the 10,000-seat stadium it hopes
will house a Triple-A team from the Pacific Coast League by 2005.
PCL President Branch B. Rickey confirmed in November the league
wants to bring a team to Reno, where there's been no minor league
baseball since 1999.
In addition to downtown Reno, the proposed sites are to the
east, along Interstate 80 at the Sparks Marina; to the south, on
U.S. Highway 395 at the Mount Rose Highway; and to the west, along
Interstate 80 near the Boomtown hotel-casino.
``We're asking the fans where they'd prefer to take their
families,'' said Bruce Breslow, an ex-sportscaster and former mayor
of Sparks who is serving as the group's marketing director. He said
they hope to announce a preferred site by the end of February.
``We are looking at land costs and the physical footprint of the
ballpark,'' he said in a statement Monday.
Phil Zive, the group's community relations director, said the
four candidate locations were selected partly because of their easy
traffic access.
``It must be a safe environment for families and be able to be
an anchor for business development around it,'' he said.
The first 130 votes cast on the Web site Monday showed nearly
half backing the Sparks location:
Sparks Marina, I-80, 48.9 percent
Downtown Reno, 27.3 percent
Highway 395, Mt. Rose, 14.4 percent
Boomtown, I-80, 9.4 percent
C.J. Jones, the group's managing partner, said Sierra Nevada
Baseball is on track to have a franchise agreement in place by the
end of the year and begin play in the 2005 baseball season. He said
the Web site should help build interest in the effort.
``In the future, the site will allow fans to purchase tickets,
check out their team's stats and order merchandise.''
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On the Net:
Sierra Nevada Baseball: www.sierranevadabaseball.com
Pacific Coast League: http://www.pclbaseball.com/index2.php
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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