UAMS joins bidding on Ray Winder site
Posted on Tuesday, December 2, 2008
After 74 years of baseball, Ray Winder Field has a lot of history behind it and, now, three potential futures on the horizon: baseball, elephants and paved parking.
While the intentions of Ray Winder enthusiasts and the Little Rock Zoo have been known for months, the University of Arkansas board of trustees convened Monday to approve a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences bid to buy the abandoned stadium.
UAMS wants to buy and tear down Ray Winder Field for parking, snagging the midtown property for future expansions, while the zoo wants it for additional space. Two organizations hope to keep the baseball diamond active, according to their proposals delivered to City Hall on Monday afternoon.
“It takes vision, because a parking lot doesn’t sound so good,” said Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson.
“Twenty years ago, we had 32 acres. Now, we have 80. We’re not going to stop growing,” he said after a special trustees meeting Monday. “It’s either this or we go into the neighborhood and start buying up properties.”
The university’s last-minute proposal, with a $ 1. 1 million offer to buy the property, was one of four Little Rock received by a 4 p. m. deadline Monday. The property appraised for $ 1. 5 million, Wilson said, but the university subtracted the demolition costs.
Although the proposals were opened Monday, the associated costs and potential revenue of the three other projects won’t be known until a review committee sifts through the sealed bids possibly later this week. City Manager Bruce Moore has not yet selected the five or six people from the community who will sit on the committee.
Little Rock asked for proposals on the stadium’s future — either to lease or buy it — after the Travelers baseball club turned over the keys in May. The club had owned the structure until then, while Little Rock owns 3. 8 acres of the property underneath it and the state hospital owns 3. 35 acres.
The boundary between the city’s and state’s land runs between first and second base and throughout right center field. The city’s request for proposals includes the state’s land, although the option to buy only applies to the city’s portion.
Little Rock’s zoo is landlocked. The zoo would like to expand its elephant program, but needs more room to breed. A proposal from the Arkansas Zoological Foundation, the zoo’s fundraising arm, went beyond housing just Asian elephants.
“There’s a potential of having a wide variety of animals at the exhibit,” said Susan Altrui, a zoo spokesman.
The exhibit could include a variety of primates and birds, she said, besides any elephants the zoo could acquire from within the United States.
Ray Winder’s stadium could be incorporated into the exhibit, with some of the grandstands remaining as a viewing area, according to the proposal. The roof would stay, although most of the seats would be removed to make way for a restaurant, a small lodge for overnight stays and a museum dedicated to the baseball stadium.
Incorporating part of the stadium would save money on demolition costs while preserving some of the character, the proposal states.
Two different organizations are vying to keep Ray Winder Field as is for baseball.
The Ray Winder Foundation, led by Traveler officials Russ Meeks and Rex Nelson, would open up the ballpark for high school and college baseball, a men’s league, tournaments and concerts.
The organization, which formed last year, said in its lease proposal that it didn’t intend to sell alcohol. Also, the foundation wouldn’t seek money for the project until it has a lease agreement.
Ricky Hawkins, who toured the stadium Monday morning, wants to lease the park for youth baseball. Hawkins said in his proposal he would work with area churches, Greek organizations and nonprofit groups to provide baseball for 10- to 12-year-olds and 13- to 16-year-olds, starting next year.
In addition to youth baseball, Hawkins proposes using Ray Winder for a community fitness camp and amateur adult baseball. Hawkins, who submitted his proposal as president of American League, declined to comment Monday about the specifics of his proposal or his organization.
Little Rock Vice-Mayor Stacy Hurst said she was surprised the city received four bids, but knew that the university likely would seek additional space. Tom Butler, the university’s vice chancellor for administration and government affairs, sits on a War Memorial Park task force Hurst leads.
“Just understanding about their parking needs and their future research park, it wasn’t entirely a surprise,” she said. Hurst said she’s keeping an open mind about the proposals but added that she hopes whoever wins the bid can afford to maintain the property.
“I think it’s going to be a very difficult decision, because there’s a lot of emotion attached not just to Ray Winder but to the various entities that have submitted proposals,” she said.
Wilson and University of Arkansas System trustees said during the specially called teleconference meeting Monday that they thought UAMS’ proposal had the most merit.
Wilson told trustees that removing asbestos and demolishing Ray Winder Field would cost an additional $ 433, 972 while a lighted, paved parking lot would cost $ 600, 000. If the university wins the bid, Wilson said, UAMS would next want to negotiate with the state to buy its share.
The university has 3, 400 oncampus parking spaces for about 7, 000 employees, said UAMS spokesman Leslie Taylor.
“We have more than 700 right now on a waiting list for on-campus parking,” she said. Information for this article was contributed by Carolyne Park of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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