With plans for its own baseball facility slowing to a crawl, Boise State is taking another look at the multi-use ballpark that could be built in Downtown Boise.
The announcement comes after the ballpark developer asked City of Boise officials if they should again approach the school.
“Boise State’s priority all along has been to build a first-class facility for our newly-launched baseball program,” Boise State Director of Athletics Curt Apsey said in a news release. “We want to make sure we thoroughly explore all of our options and make the best long-term decision for the university and our program.”
The school announced in November of 2017 it would pull out of the project at a previous site at Americana and Shoreline.
The university’s then-president said the multi-use stadium was not in the interest of the school.
“(M)y primary responsibility as university president is to make the best choices for the future of Boise State,” Kustra said at the time. He stepped down as Boise State president in the summer of 2018.
The school said in a news release it has “outlined a series of requirements that university leaders say could provide the financial and logistical incentive to consider joining the City of Boise and Greenstone Properties in pursuit of a proposed Boise Sports Park.
Records show Schoen asked Boise for guidance
Greenstone’s Chris Schoen emailed the City of Boise’s Nic Miller in October asking about the possibility of Boise State getting involved again.
“Nic – with Custra (sic) no longer at Boise State, does it make sense to talk to the new interim guy about a joint facility? They are getting ready to find out how expensive a new stadium will be…” Schoen wrote.
In a subsequent email, Miller said “it would be worth a call and then we could assist, if needed.”
After an apparent meeting between Schoen and Boise State interim president Martin Schimpf, the Greenstone principal emailed Miller again – on October 15th:
“Very good conversation with Interim President. Don’t know if Joe Scott made a big contribution to make them go away the first time but he was very intent on understanding what we were doing and how a joint facility could work. I told him I thought his facility would cost at least $20 million without land and that this debt service would be in the $1.0 million annual range plus maintenance. Makes too much sense to build one facility and share.”
The news release comes just days after a BoiseDev request for additional public records for contact between the City of Boise and Boise State officials on the ballpark. The request has not yet been fulfilled.
Boise State says its plan for an on-campus field continue.
