AMARILLO, Texas — This just in: The multipurpose event venue that is under construction in downtown Amarillo will be done by February and will be all set to go when the city’s new AA minor-league baseball team starts playing hardball next spring.

How do I know that? I have no first-hand, insider knowledge. But I did hear it today from a former mayor under whose leadership this project was launched. I caught up with Paul Harpole today at the Route 66 festival occurring along Sixth Avenue.

Harpole said the work crews have benefited greatly from the lack of moisture during the winter of 2017-18 and in the first half of this year. They’re goin’ and blown’ at the construction site along Buchanan Street, Harpole indicated.

So, you see? There really is a benefit — if you want to call it that — to enduring a drought.

I don’t intend to make light of the drought conditions. Farmers and ranchers are struggling through it. I feel badly for them and the difficulty they are enduring.

However, the MPEV needs to get done in time for the opening of the Texas League’s 2019 baseball season, which will include a franchise based in Amarillo. It will have moved here San Antonio, which is getting a AAA franchise that is transferring from Colorado Springs, Colo.

If the lack of moisture means the construction crews will be able to plow ahead unimpeded by Mother Nature’s occasional fits of wrath, then that’s all the better for the city … and for the Texas Panhandle.