{"id":27775,"date":"2018-01-31T00:33:18","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T00:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27775"},"modified":"2018-01-31T00:33:18","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T00:33:18","slug":"waiting-big-ceremony-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27775","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for big ceremony downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I accepted an invitation today.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t an exclusive<\/em> invitation, as I’m sure the folks who extended it want as many folks as they can find to attend.<\/p>\n

They’re going to break ground Thursday on the, um, multipurpose event venue on Buchanan Street in downtown Amarillo, Texas.<\/p>\n

The MPEV, aka The Ballpark, will be completed in time for the 2019 AA minor-league baseball season. It will cost an estimated $45 million. It will seat around 4,500 fans for baseball and a lot more for other community events that proponents hope will be part of the venue’s agenda.<\/p>\n

This is a big deal, folks! The MPEV reached this point after countless public hearings, serious public debate, two contentious City Council elections and a citywide referendum that voters approved by a narrow margin in November 2015.<\/p>\n

I’ve long supported the concept of the MPEV and I want this ballpark built on time and hopefully under budget.<\/p>\n

The promise of the MPEV brought a shiny new hotel across the street from the Civic Center. They’ve built a parking garage as well, with ground-floor space set aside for retail establishments; to date, those floors remain dark, but there’s considerable promise that outlets will move in once the MPEV gets much closer to completion.<\/p>\n

The groundbreaking event will be for symbolic purposes only. A group of dignitaries will line up with shovels under foot. They might make some remarks. They’ll smile for the cameras, push the shovels into the dirt, shake hands, pat each other on the back and then go back to their day jobs.<\/p>\n

Then the real work will begin.<\/p>\n

My confidence that the MPEV would become a reality for Amarillo went through its share of ups and downs. The City Council seemed to waffle on it after the 2015 municipal election. Then it sent the matter to a “non-binding” vote in that referendum later that year. The MPEV became the subject of sometimes-heated community debate. Then it passed. The city wasn’t obligated<\/em> to abide by the result, but the council did the right thing and proceeded forward.<\/p>\n

So, here we are. Amarillo is on the cusp of a new era. They’ll break ground on property just south of City Hall.<\/p>\n

I’ll be there to watch the new era begin.<\/p>\n

Then I will cheer when the era arrives. Who knows? I might even be in the stands to watch ’em toss out the first pitch.<\/p>\n\n

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I accepted an invitation today. It wasn’t an exclusive invitation, as I’m sure the folks who extended it want as many folks as they can find to attend. They’re going to break ground Thursday on the, um, multipurpose event venue on Buchanan Street in downtown Amarillo, Texas. The MPEV, aka The Ballpark, will be completed … Continue reading Waiting for big ceremony downtown<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,17],"tags":[288,290,1436,3153],"class_list":["post-27775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news","category-local-news","category-sports-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-mpev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27778,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27775\/revisions\/27778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}