{"id":25732,"date":"2020-01-23T18:36:18","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T23:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25732"},"modified":"2020-01-31T19:43:51","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T00:43:51","slug":"new-proposal-delays-decision-on-hallmark-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-proposal-delays-decision-on-hallmark-lands\/","title":{"rendered":"New proposal delays decision on Hallmark Lands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Local sports teams will have a while to wait before Council makes a final decision on whether to go ahead with two new baseball diamonds on Aurora\u2019s Hallmark Lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillors went into last week\u2019s General Committee\nmeeting poised to review a staff recommendation to go ahead with developing two\ndiamonds on the site, located near Industrial Parkway South and Vandorf\nSideroad, at a total cost of $3.942 million, an increase of $942,200 since the\nproject was initially approved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council faced the same recommendation late last year, but\nlocal lawmakers held off on making a final decision until this month \u2013 just\nenough time for Shaun McGuire of the Aurora King Baseball Association (AKBA) to\nmake a potentially game-changing proposal: an indoor baseball dome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we know, the Hallmark property is approximately 13\nacres and approximately two acres of the property would be required [to\naccommodate] a proposed 60,000 square foot dome with a 3,000 square foot\nclubhouse attached,\u201d Mr. McGuire told Council, elaborating on the proposal, and\nlooking to the Aurora Sports Dome on Industrial Parkway North as an example of\nwhat could be. \u201cMy extensive travel through the US seeing various baseball\nfacilities, domes are used quite frequently\u2026for baseball training. This baseball\nfacility would offer a 60,000 square foot turf field, three full-size\nretractable mesh-surrounded infields, one full-size open field, ten batting\ncages with pitching machines and batting tees, and three pitching mounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis baseball facility would be built with a clubhouse\nthat would include office space and a boardroom. This would be the home of the\nAKBA head office. It would also include a weight room, bathrooms and\nchangerooms for both men and women. If built with a basement on the clubhouse,\nthere would be ample storage for AKBA to meet all their storage needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the proposal came to pass, opportunities for youth\nbaseball play could be increased as would opportunities for the AKBA and other\nbaseball groups to offer year-round conditioning and training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facility could also serve as a multipurpose facility\nthat could offer opportunities for additional sports and teams, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe facility would attract baseball and softball\nassociations, teams and individuals looking to train at an elite level,\u201d said\nMcGuire. \u201cThis would allow for parents to shop and support local vendors while\nthey wait for their children to be trained. The facility would staff a team of\nup to 15 full and part-time employees as well as during the summer months there\nwould be the potential to run climate-controlled youth camps within the dome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dome of this nature would be \u201cfully funded\u201d by private\ninvestors with no cost to the Town except for use of the two acres of land\nwithin the parcel, he concluded, when pressed by Councillor Harold Kim on any\npossible financial implications on the Town. Sweetening the pot, Mr. McGuire\nspeculated that going forward with the proposal would halve the Town\u2019s costs on\ndeveloping the balance of the acreage for baseball. The Town would subsequently\nbe responsible for grading, electrical and other servicing requirements on-site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis throws a whole new wrench into the project and I am\nvery interested in this proposal,\u201d said Councillor Rachel Gilliland following\nMr. McGuire\u2019s presentation, noting that the proposal, as presented, is geared\nmore towards competitive teams practicing in the winter and all year round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Councillor Kim\u2019s questions continued on the financial\ntrack, questioning whether the private group exploring this opportunity already\nhad financing in place. Mr. McGuire said they did, which prompted a further\nquestion from Mayor Tom Mrakas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinancing is in there, an outside group and organization\nis going to come in and built this multimillion-dollar facility out of the\ngoodness of their heart?\u201d asked the Mayor, further inquiring whether the\nproposal includes the group leasing the land from the Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey would be making money, obviously, off the back of\nit,\u201d replied Mr. McGuire. \u201cThere would be a commercial end to it where they\nwould earn an income coming from the facility. The question of leasing the\nland is something on the next step, this presentation being the first step\nas it is pretty new coming to Council. Everything has fallen into place real\nfast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the devil stuck in the details, Council voted to\ngive the proposal some time to gel before making any further financial\ncommitments on the development of Hallmark, passing Councillor Kim\u2019s motion to\nrefer the matter back to staff for a further report on a potential training\nfacility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, we don\u2019t have other options,\u201d said Councillor Kim. \u201cWe might as well take a good look at it and have staff study this option, get the financials, get all the details and see if it is a viable option. If it is not, Council might make other plans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora King Baseball Association, private partnership pitch indoor baseball dome for portion of lands slated for diamonds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6H2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 01:26:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}