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No new Fort Smith ballpark — for now

A potential ballpark for indy ball in Fort Smith, Ark., is on hold, as the city looks to a developer to build a facility as part of a larger project.

A potential ballpark for indy ball in Fort Smith, Ark., is on hold, as the city looks to a developer to build a facility as part of a larger project.

The ballpark, potentially for the American Association, would have sat in downtown Fort Smith's waterfront. But a $62,000 study of downtown development potential indicated that while a ballpark would be economically viable, there was little appetite for city spending on a facility. Without that public spending, there's little chance of a new ballpark as it stands right now.

Fort Smith would be attractive to the American Association in many ways: it's a decent-sized market, and its location would serve as a nice bridge between that circuit's northern and southern divisions. And the report didn't indicate that any ballpark project was dead: only that it needed to attract private-development money to happen. 

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