A Greenwood Village-based sports-development firm has scrapped plans to bring an independent minor-league baseball team and a new stadium to Aurora because of rising costs, company officials said Tuesday.
National Sports Services announced the project in January 2005, with plans for the team to begin play this month.
The project hit a series of development and design delays, and the cost of building the stadium ballooned from $8 million to $11 million, a result of “demand issues for materials and the dramatic increase in the cost of oil,” the company said.
“It’s disappointing that changes beyond our control affected the long-term feasibility of the project,” said Matt Perry, chief executive of National Sports.
Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer said he didn’t want to put public funds into the project to make it work.
“We told our citizens that the team, and not Aurora, would be paying for the stadium,” Tauer said. “There was a gap between what the team can support and what the stadium would cost to build. We can’t fill that gap with the taxpayers’ money at this time.”
Tauer said Aurora plans to build a regional park on the 140-acre-plus site where the stadium would have been built, near Buckley Air Force Base.
National Sports said it still plans to own and operate two minor-league baseball teams in the metro area and along the Front Range. If the city of Arvada approves its plans, National Sports will break ground on a $7 million, 3,500-seat stadium this summer within an existing sports park in Arvada. The Arvada team would tentatively begin play in May 2007.
For the second team, the company is looking for a site that is already developed and has another operation, such as a recreation center, so that some of the costs could be shared, said chief financial officer Allen Fears.
“If you combine this facility that we’re proposing along with another development … then the economics aren’t as challenging,” Fears said.
Staff writer Andy Vuong can be reached at 303-820-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com.
