The fate of a historic site in Fort Worth could be decided on Tuesday.
The Tarrant Regional Water District board (TRWD) is expected to vote on whether to demolish the LaGrave Field baseball stadium in order to make way for new plans on Panther Island.
The water district owns the field, which used to be a historic minor league baseball stadium.
The now dilapidated structure still sits north of downtown Fort Worth and it has been falling apart since it closed in 2014.
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The water district has been paying nearly $200,000 dollars a year for security and basic upkeep of the property such as mowing.
Currently, the stadium sits on nearly 350 acres of prime real estate, which is part of the future Panther Island economic development.
An already approved $1 billion flood control project will build a bypass channel on the Trinity River right through the land where the stadium is located. There are a number of plans going into the Panther Island project, an effort that is expected to transform the area by 2032.
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During a February special meeting, a consulting firm even recommended demolishing and selling off the LaGrave site to pave the way for what's to come.
"We know there have been ideas and various aspirations over time about its redevelopment. Today its in a state of disrepair. Both the cost of bringing it back into service and the need to have a viable business model are quite important," said Cary Hirschstein with HR&A Advisors during the February meeting. "It takes up a fair amount of space and would require a fair amount of parking to service it, too. We were asked to look at its potential contribution to the idea of supporting this district. But very much in the theme of what we've been talking about, in terms of public return on investment, the highest and best use of land and how those component parts fit together, our ultimate recommendation was that it’s not the highest and best use of that land."
But there has been some hesitancy on what to do next, both from the TRWD board and from locals -- and that's because of LaGrave's history.
This site dates back to 1926, when the Fort Worth Cats baseball team first started playing in another 12,000 seat stadium that once stood there. For decades, thousands of fans would fill the ballpark for baseball games.
"We had Jackie Robinson. On April 4, 1948, he played baseball there. He was one of the first African American baseball players to play in the big leagues. Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio played there,” said Larry O'Neal, founder of the Fort Worth Memories Facebook group.
O’Neal is a longtime local history buff, along with the 130,000 members of his group – which he jokes is the third largest city in Tarrant County. Many have expressed sadness over seeing a piece of Fort Worth's history go away for good.
"I know there's not going to be another baseball stadium there, but I would like to see something that would not be apartments or glass and mirrors,” he told NBC 5.
The site has seen its share of obstacles before. Fire and floods nearly destroyed the original stadium in the late 1940s. It had nearly 20 more good years until the Cats team came to an end and the structure was demolished in 1967.
In 2001, a businessman brought the Cats back to life and reconstructed the stadium that is seen today. The baseball team’s lease ended in November 2014 when the team died off once again. Plans to bring the team back to Fort Worth and bring the stadium back to life as well didn’t come to fruition in 2020.
O’Neal said he hopes whatever happens to the site will be something that continues to serve the community in the same way LaGrave once did.
"We care about our history. We've let a lot of it go. And of course, you can't save any everything,” he said. "To my generation, that's kind of a keepsake that we don't want to lose. We lose too much of our history now anyway."
On Tuesday, the TRWD is dedicating much of their board meeting to public comment to get more feedback on whether to demolish the LaGrave Field and what the public thinks the next steps could be.
"We're just on this growth period now that we're the place to come to -- and we all need to pitch in and help keep it a good city," said O'Neal.
In the last meeting, board members also said they want to bring in a consultant to help them figure out what they should do with the site before making big moves.
"It would be my motion that we go out and hire a consultant. It helps us with our strategy and delay discussions with individual property owners until we have that strategy within the framework of what we're trying to do,” said James Hill, TRWD board member.
The agenda for Tuesday also expresses wanting to keep certain elements to honor the history of baseball in Fort Worth and potentially auction off elements to the public.
The meeting starts at 9 a.m. at TRWD headquarters on 800 East Northside Drive. Doors open at 8:30 a.m. and speaker cards are available at the front desk.
