TULSA, Okla.—Officials from Tulsa and the city’s minor-league baseball team said Saturday they have agreed in principle to build a new downtown stadium.
The deal, announced by Mayor Kathy Taylor and Tulsa Drillers owner Chuck Lamson, came after more than eight months of negotiations. The stadium will be located in the city’s Greenwood District, an area once known as Black Wall Street and the site of the 1921 Tulsa race riots.
Taylor said the $60 million stadium will be built next to the planned John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park and should open by 2010. Taylor has previously said the new stadium would have about 6,200 fixed seats, along with berm seating and suites.
The Drillers, the Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, now play in Drillers Stadium, which is located at Expo Square, about five miles east of downtown. Drillers Stadium, which opened in 1981, has a seating capacity of 10,997, which the team said is the largest among Double-A stadiums in the country.
“A new ballpark in downtown Tulsa has long been a dream of mine for the Tulsa Drillers and their fans,” Taylor said.
She said the stadium will be financed through $30 million in private donations and through tax money generated from an assessment in a downtown business improvement district created last month by the Tulsa city council.
Last August, Lamson signed a nonbinding agreement to move the Texas League team from midtown Tulsa to a proposed $1 billion development on the west bank of the Arkansas River in suburban Jenks. Soon after, Taylor said she would maintain her efforts to keep the Drillers in Tulsa.
In January, the Drillers agreed to exclusively negotiate with Tulsa city officials for four months about a new stadium. That deadline eventually was extended four times before Saturday’s announcement.
“We are sure that it will be one of the finest ballparks in the Texas League, right here in the heart of downtown Tulsa,” Lamson said.
Taylor said the delays in the negotiations were necessary to allow time for milestones to be met, such as finding a suitable location for the stadium, creating the business improvement district, raising private money and having the city council approve a public trust to oversee the stadium.
The council will meet Thursday to consider a proposal to create such a trust, which would formally accept the donations of the private money.
The team and city will attempt to finalize a lease agreement during the next week. Under the tentative agreement, the Drillers will lease the stadium for a minimum of 20 and possibly 30 years, depending on the funding generated by the tax on the business improvement district.
Also, the city will be able to use the stadium for more than 20 days a year for non-baseball events during the baseball season and have unlimited use of the stadium during the Drillers’ offseason.
The lease also would stipulate that the city and team both support long-term maintenance of the stadium, and that the team would play all seasons required under the lease and give the city a right to make the first offer if the team should be sold.
