Baseball Coming To Loudoun?

(The short-lived Diamond Lake stadium site in Loudoun.)

Folks who have been around for the past decade will remember the great debates over bringing baseball to the DC area. One of the proposals was to move the Expos to northern Virginia, instead of DC. That did not work out, but a new proposal would put a minor league park and team at the emerging nexus being built around the intersection of Rt. 7 and Rt. 28.

The 400 acre site would be the home to a $3 billion project. It would include offices, multi-family homes, 400,000 square feet of retail space, three hotels and a ball park. The project, located near another major development in the works called One Loudoun, will draw in more people, but it's something people have mixed feelings about. "Revenue builder for the people around here but, at the same time, all of the area that used to be trees is no longer trees. So you got to take the good with the bad," said Chuck Bowley, Ashburn resident.
...
But with increased population comes traffic. Loudoun County board chair Scott York says developers would help ease traffic issues in the Dulles area by paying for road improvements. "It would help to finish up the completion of Pacific Boulevard as well as Gloucester Parkway which includes a couple of bridges that need to be built, which there is absolutely no funding for," said Scott York, Board of Supervisors chairman. - News Channel 8

Baseball and needed road improvements? Sounds like a very interesting deal, but one which might be too good to be true if not watched carefully.

Rt. 7 is often congested from Sterling to Ashburn, with no prospects for alternate routes anytime soon. Furthermore, there is a lot of unoccupied office space on both Rt. 7 and Rt. 28, is there sufficient demand to warrant the construction of new office space? On the other hand, Virginia's transportation funding crisis means that there is absolutely no prospect of getting needed improvements in that area built without some kind of developer proffer, so Loudoun will probably have to trade some new offices and homes for road improvements for the foreseeable future.

On a personal level, I like the idea of minor league baseball in Loudoun, and that location is probably a good one, as it is the center of an important economic hub. It lends itself to local businesses and weekend activities for the family that don't involve going into DC. Besides, I love baseball, and would love to root for a truly local professional team.

(with a tip-o-the-hat to Loudoun County Traffic.)