WACO, TX — The Waco BlueCats still have a heartbeat despite funding conflicts, according to their manager Stan Hough.
The BlueCats were officially named as a baseball team back in November of 2016. The team is a part of the Southwest League of Professional Baseball, which is not affiliated with Minor League Baseball or the MLB.
The team was originally scheduled for its season opener in April 2018, but was then pushed back to April 2019.
But, the same 13.5 acre lot that was supposed to house the team is still not developed.
The reason?
Real-estate and conflicts with funding, according to Hough.
Hough said that the lot was not only planned to be used as a baseball facility, but also as a large retail area and office space that would maximize the use of the facility year round.
"That's why the multi-use part of it, the retail aspect and office lease really brought me on board, it wasn't the baseball, baseball is fine, its what I want to do, but that's what sold me on the thing," Hough said.
Yost Zakhary, interim City Manager of Bellmead, said a decision about the land needs to be made.
"The land is earmarked for the ballpark, but if they're not going to be able to come through with the financing then we need to move forward and continue to market that property," Zakhary said.
"I can understand their economic development department wanting to move forward, its their land and we can't expect anything less than that," Hough said.
Zakhary said the development has been in discussion way before his time, and that they were given the deadline of April 1, 2019.
"So that date has come, that date has gone," Zakhary said. "It's great to have a vision, it's great to have a dream, dreams are great, but if there's no funding to back it I don't think we'd be interested in entertaining even another vision."
He said the city is welcome to pursue whatever they want with the land, but the process would have to be restarted.
Central Texas News Now reached out to Mark Schuster, the President of the Southwest League of Professional Baseball, multiple times to receive comment, but we were unable to reach him.
