{"id":27818,"date":"2018-02-01T22:26:39","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T22:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27818"},"modified":"2018-02-01T22:26:39","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T22:26:39","slug":"mpev-ground-broken-city-bolts-toward-brighter-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27818","title":{"rendered":"MPEV ground broken; city bolts toward brighter future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A crowd of about 200 or 300 folks came today to a vacant lot across from Amarillo City Hall. There was some back-slapping, congratulatory wishes and plenty of smiles to be seen.<\/p>\n

And for a very good reason.<\/p>\n

They broke ground today on a $45 million entertainment venue — aka The Ballpark — that is likely to help lead downtown Amarillo toward a future that few of us thought was possible.<\/p>\n

I do believe the future is a bright one.<\/p>\n

The multipurpose event venue has been called a “catalyst” that would spark downtown Amarillo’s revival and rebirth. They lit that catalyst this afternoon. May the spark now light an economic fire.<\/p>\n

City officials welcomed executives from the Elmore Group, owners of the new AA minor-league baseball team that will play ball at the MPEV when it’s done, no later than April 2019. Elmore execs declared their intention to make Amarillo the nation’s top minor-league baseball city.<\/p>\n

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Given the hope and optimism I witnessed today under a bright winter sun, I have a hunch many of those in attendance today believe that high-minded goal is well within reach. I hope it comes true.<\/p>\n

I am acutely aware that a big crowd at a ceremonial groundbreaking doesn’t guarantee<\/em> success. Construction has to proceed quickly. It should be done at or under budget.<\/p>\n

The MPEV will need to open with lots of people sitting in its seats to watch the baseball team that is moving here from San Antonio. Many high-profile supporters of the MPEV — and I can cite retired Amarillo College President Paul Matney as one of them — have contended that Amarillo is a “good baseball town.” We will determine the legitimacy of that claim in due course.<\/p>\n

The catalyst also is slated to bring more business into the downtown district. It will help fill a shiny new hotel and a parking garage across the street from the Civic Center. It also might become a good promotional tool for the city to lure more convention business, which will bring presumably deep-pocketed visitors to Amarillo.<\/p>\n

That’s all in the immediate future for a city that has embarked on a serious makeover of its central business district.<\/p>\n

Today, they broke ground on the next big step on the city’s journey toward a brighter future.<\/p>\n

Now … let’s get busy.<\/p>\n\n

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A crowd of about 200 or 300 folks came today to a vacant lot across from Amarillo City Hall. There was some back-slapping, congratulatory wishes and plenty of smiles to be seen. And for a very good reason. They broke ground today on a $45 million entertainment venue — aka The Ballpark — that is … Continue reading MPEV ground broken; city bolts toward brighter future<\/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":[2,3,9,17],"tags":[290,293,1436,7558,3153],"class_list":["post-27818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news","category-entertainment-news","category-local-news","category-sports-news","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-amarillo-civic-center","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-elmore-group","tag-mpev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27818","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=27818"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27823,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27818\/revisions\/27823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}