Cats owner seeking buyer for minor league team
Bell has been trying to sell the Fort Worth Cats franchise and the property along the Trinity River surrounding the stadium for several months. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t still trying to reach an agreement with a local public entity to buy the property, though negotiations are winding down, said Fort Worth Cats General Manager John Bilbow.
“It’s always been Carl’s goal in the long run; he’s always hoped that as he constructed the stadium and showed the validity of the team, that the Sports Authority would adopt the stadium and give us an opportunity to make it a public entity and it just didn’t come to fruition. I’m not sure why,” Bilbow said.
Bilbow said Bell could not comment on the situation because of confidentiality agreements.
To date, most of The Cats’ staff has been let go. Bilbow said he and a few staff members continue to come in to help Bell, but most are mindful that new owners could bring big employee changes.
“I might get picked up by the new owners, but right now my future is pretty uncertain,” Bilbow said, adding that he is pursuing other career options.
Bell’s attempt to interest a public entity in the stadium, such as the Sports Authority may fall on deaf ears with city coffers empty, according to several officials.
The city of Fort Worth established the Fort Worth Sports Authority in the early 1990’s as a section 4B economic development corporation to promote economic development by providing means to secure and retain business and jobs. The Sports Authority currently owns the land surrounding the Texas Motor Speedway in north Fort Worth and leases its usage to the speedway.
The original LaGrave Field opened as Panther Park in 1926 and was renamed three years later in honor of team executive Paul LaGrave. It was demolished in 1967. Bell, a Dallas investor, resurrected the team and re-opened the stadium to play in the 2002 season.
In addition to the ball park, Bell planned a 1.5 million-square-foot, mixed-use development to surround the ball park featuring 850 condos and town homes, and more than half a million square feet in office retail space.
Bell campaigned for much of 2008, trying to convince public entities such as the Tarrant County Water District and the Fort Worth Sports Authority to buy LaGrave and lease it back to the Cats, much like the city’s lease-back with the Texas Motor Speedway.
In June 2008, Bell presented a similar proposition during an executive session of the Tarrant Regional Water District’s board of directors meeting, asking the Trinity River Vision Authority to lead possible future negotiations for the sale of the park to a public entity. Any such negotiations have since fallen through.
At the time, Bell told The Business Press the sale of LaGrave Field would free up funds so he could concentrate on his 1.5 million-square-foot development planned to surround the field.
“It’s definitely been talked about and the Sports Authority has been approached and I still think it’s a discussion that’s ongoing, but maybe just tabled for the immediacy,” Bilbow said. “I don’t know if there’s a whole lot of attention with everything going on with the city’s budget, but the Sports Authority is well-informed.”
But Tom Higgins, assistant city manager for economic and community development, which oversees the Sports Authority, said Bell has never submitted a formal proposal for The Cats’ stadium and surrounding land to be purchased by the Sports Authority.
“There are no active discussions. There is no proposal,” Higgins said. “… As far as I can remember, there has never been any formal discussion between the Sports Authority and The Cats as far as any agreement between the two in the ownership of land or the stadium. There’s been an informal ‘we should look at it,’ but it’s never been formalized.”
Without a proposal, Higgins said he is not sure how such a deal would look.
“We would just have to look at it and see,” he said. “I don’t know all the details of the situation over there.”
Higgins said comparing the speedway deal with a hypothetical proposal by The Cats is not fair, though.
“The structure of the speedway deal and the Sports Authority arrangement, the structure that’s been put in place, is much different,” he said. “Without sitting down with The Cats, I don’t know, the speedway is a $250 million, very profitable piece and The Cats is a completely different situation.”
Given the city of Fort Worth’s recent budget shortfall, Randall Harwood, director of project management for the city, said The Cats’ stadium and land purchase is something the Sports Authority might consider under normal circumstances, but is not likely now.
“They don’t have any revenue,” Harwood said of the Sports Authority. “They don’t have any cash. So we would have to look at a way to finance it. There is no general fund money available and no bonding capacity left; we’re using it all up. The only opportunity that I can see is through the future gas revenue and the council is not committing those dollars until we have them in hand. We just don’t have a source in house.”
If Bell is successful in selling the land and the stadium, Harwood said the Sports Authority might look at the property down the line, assuming the city’s financial picture improves.
“We’re always willing to talk about a deal that would be beneficial to our city and citizens,” he said. “This is largely a condition of the financial times we’re in and our ability to raise and generate money from that facility is limited. Any models I’ve seen, it doesn’t pay for itself. If we’re going to invest in anything in these times, it would be something that pays for itself.”
Bilbow said he and Bell understand the funding problems, but both are sure that “everyone would like to see LaGrave Field preserved.”
“… Pretty much everybody would like to see the facility stay in tact, so my deduction is that I don’t think Carl is looking to generate revenue, but just to be made whole,” Bilbow said.
