Part of a redevelopment project proposed in Waukesha is creating concern: The baseball facility at Frame Park.
This is a place many have an emotional attachment to, like life-long Waukesha resident Sandy Hamm.
“As a kid, 60 years ago my dad would take me down there Saturday morning to hunt morel mushrooms,” said Sandy Hamm, Waukesha.
The city and Big Top Baseball want to make improvements to the stadium and bring Northwoods League Baseball, a summer collegiate league, to the park.
The proposed plan said Big Top Baseball would spend $500,000 on the stadium up front. Waukesha would dish out $4.5 million. Big Top would then lease the field from the city for 20 years.
Leaders said Monday the project would create non-tax revenue without using general fund tax dollars.
“The idea of creating any type of tax revenue I think is bogus,” said one resident during a public information meeting Monday.
“It’s a bad financial deal for the city,” Hamm said.
Some of the concerns neighbors brought up at Monday’s meeting include traffic, garbage and alcohol use.
“We do not need to take prime land and use it for this,” said one resident during the meeting.
There’s also concern about a deed. Andrew Frame deeded the land Frame Park is on to the city in 1926 to be used as a public park. Some feel charging admission and seeking concessions goes against his wishes.
“It’s just part and parcel of Waukesha,” Hamm said.
Friends of Frame Park are suing the city over the deed issue.
Most of the critics said they aren’t against baseball. They just want the project to go somewhere other than Frame Park.
Several more informational meetings are scheduled about the proposed project.
