The San Antonio Missions (Double-A; Texas League) are in the process of being sold to a local investment group led by real-estate developer Graham Weston for $29 million, with a new downtown ballpark in the mix.
The sale and the sale price was passed along by sources close to the deal. The purchase is expected to close at the end of November.
The deal makes sense on many levels. The Missions and team owner Elmore Sports Group have been discussing new ballpark since 2012 (!) with Graham Weston, who first made his financial mark launching Rackspace Technology web hosting, then transitioned to real estate development under the Weston Urban moniker. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff–yes, the man behind the original Nelson Wolff Stadium–confirmed the pair was working on a new-ballpark plan this summer, either in downtown San Antonio or one of several nearby sites where the ballpark would be the centerpiece of new development. (Yes, this should sound familiar if you’ve been following ballpark development recently; witness Richmond and Knoxville.) Earlier we had reported Weston Urban had been involved in two downtown development efforts near redeveloped San Pedro Creek or the former Lone Star Brewery site south of downtown. The firm has also reportedly acquiring other downtown land parcels.
A new Missions ballpark is not a new topic in San Antonio, either, as a slew of other potential ballpark sited have been floated; a Hemisfair site, a site near the Alamodome, etc. These efforts predate MLB’s overhaul of MiLB, which saw the Missions demoted to Double-A, losing its Triple-A status. With the new MiLB facility standards implemented by MLB, it became pretty obvious that Nelson Wolff Stadium would need millions and millions in upgrades just to meet the standards with no expectation of fueling future economic activity.
A new ballpark may also propel San Antonio back to a Triple-A market, as was the case in 2019 and the canceled 2020 season–something also of interest to local officials, leading to possible affiliation with a Texas-based MLB team.
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