Goodyear Ballpark

Who says you can’t go home? The Cleveland Indians certainly are. And for those who think things never change, the Cincinnati Reds beg to differ.

As a result, the Cactus League will soon be two teams bigger. Both Ohio-based teams are moving to Goodyear, AZ, where the $108 million Goodyear Ballpark and Recreational Sports Complex will await their arrival.

For the Indians, sixteen seasons in Florida was enough, and 2009 will mark their return to the league they informally founded in 1947, when Cleveland and the New York Giants became the first two teams to set up permanent spring camps in Arizona. The Indians played at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson in their inaugural Cactus League season and stayed there until they departed 45 years later. The Tribe called Winter Haven's Chain of Lakes Park home from 1993-2008.

Originally, the Goodyear complex was to host only the Indians, but on April 7, 2008 it was announced that the Reds would be joining them, albeit one year later in 2010. Baseball’s oldest franchise will leave Sarasota to train outside of the Sunshine State for the first time since they held spring training in Bloomington, IN during World War II. The Reds decided to leave Ed Smith Stadium, their home of a dozen seasons, after Sarasota was unable to fully fund the renovations the team was seeking.

The Indians and Reds will eventually share a main stadium built on three acres of land with majestic views of the Estrella Mountains. Simply called the Goodyear Ballpark, it will hold 10,000 fans – 8,000 in stadium seats, 1,500 on the outfield berm, and 500 in the right field pavilion party deck. The HOK Sport designed ballpark will also have six suites.

The Recreational Sports Complex will take up 100 acres south of the ballpark and have a half dozen practice fields for each team. The Indians portion of the complex has already been finished. The team began moving in on August 11, ten days after the city notified them that their development complex and clubhouse was substantially complete and ready for occupancy. The Reds’ facilities are scheduled to be completed in November 2009.

Goodyear’s vision extends far beyond baseball. Their master plan calls for a ballpark village, with the ballpark serving as the anchor for mixed-use development. “Its ground-level concourse is being planned to ensure cohesive integration with surrounding restaurants, offices and a hotel/conference center,” is how the city words it.

The city also assumed responsibility for finishing infrastructure construction after the two entities it hired - Civica Development and MPK/Wood Family Enterprises – became embroiled in a legal dispute after the Wood family filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Woods farmed the land the ballpark is being built on until they sold it to the city and partnered with Civica to develop the retail and office space around it. Goodyear terminated their agreement with both on August 15 in order to ensure the main stadium and offsite infrastructure would be completed on time.

The ballpark is scheduled to be completed in February and host its first game on the 25th of that month, when the Indians play the Giants in their first of 17 home games.

Just as the Reds will beginning in 2010, the Indians will pay $100,000 per year in rent, with upward adjustments to cover inflation. Each team signed a 20-year lease with two five-year renewal options.

Cincinnati’s lease was approved unanimously by the Goodyear city council on July 14 after the city found a way to fund the additional $32 million needed to convert the complex into a two-team facility.

That financing will come largely from public improvement corporation bonds, which will cost the city about $1.5 million in payments each year. The debt service will be paid primarily from Goodyear’s revolving fund budget, and could be supplemented with a proposed 1 percent increase to the hotel bed tax.

More aid will eventually come from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority (AZSTA), the state run agency that was created to fund construction and renovations of Cactus League ballparks in Maricopa County, which Goodyear resides in. As per their policy, the AZSTA covered half the cost of the Indians' facilities. That amounted to $38 million of the $76 million price tag. For new ballparks, the AZSTA funds half the cost of one-team facilities and two-thirds for two-team facilities.

The Reds' decision to move to Goodyear changed the financial equation, but by then the AZSTA's budget was depleted. The city and authority eventually reached an agreement to secure future revenues to pay for two-thirds of the revised $108 million cost of the two-team complex, which includes reimbursement to cover the 16.7% gap that city is now owed on the Indians’ facilities.

If nothing else, this proves how big of a business spring training has become. But the $108 million cost of the ballpark and training complex pales in comparison to the cost of making the city’s “ballpark village” a reality. Goodyear initially estimated that total to be $1 billion. In baseball parlance, that’s four long-term contracts for players of Alex Rodriguez’s caliber. And that just further underscores how big of a business baseball has become.

But A-Rod will likely never set foot in Goodyear. Instead, plenty of new offices, shops, restaurants and residences will. And, of course, the two ballclubs that spurred all of the economic activity.

Location and Parking

Goodyear is about 20 miles southwest of Phoenix. The new ballpark is just two miles south of I-10. Estrella Parkway passes directly by it. The ballpark is across the street from a recently built neighborhood of homes. It's much bigger and more noticeable neighbor to the east is the Phoenix-Goodyear Municipal Airport, where large commercial airliners sit on airport property waiting to be fixed or eventually deposed of. Numerous jets await their fate in the shadows of the ballpark, from which the nearby Estrella Mountains are also visible.

Parking for 3,000 vehicles will be available within the complex.

- Written by Graham Knight on October 28, 2008