Spring training is underway here in the Valley, and one team is looking to build new housing near its stadium. The Chicago Cubs are planning a new hotel and housing near their facility in Mesa, on the site of a former county animal shelter.
Brandon Brown, senior reporter at the Phoenix Business Journal, has written about this, and joined The Show to talk more about it.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Brandon, what exactly is this project?
BRANDON BROWN: So they’re building this new two-building facility next to the Cub spring training facility in Mesa. One building is going to be a player housing building, the other one’s going to be a hotel.
And the player housing building is going to be for minor league players within the Cubs system. So when they come here for spring training or other times of the year, they have a place to stay.
BRODIE: How big of a problem is it for players coming here for let’s say a month or six weeks or so for spring training to have to find a place to live?
BROWN: There’s so many teams that are here and they’re bringing in so many players. They are always looking for places to stay. Sometimes it’s Airbnb, sometimes it’s hotels. And depending on how big, depending on how many players they have, teams have a lot of different solutions. But having their own place will be a lot easier for the teams just to have, "Hey, this team is staying here these days."
BRODIE: Do we know how many units there will be and what they will look like in terms of amenities?
BROWN: Yes. There will be 36 units, but each unit will have two to three bedrooms in it. And it’s kind of assumed that there might be multiple players staying in there at a time. In the documents filed with the city, they said that no one’s going to be staying there for long amounts of time.
But it’s not necessarily a hotel either. So it’s a residential building. They’re asking for it to be a residential building, but it have 36 units with two- or three-bedroom units. And within there, there’s going to be like a sports court facility outside, because baseball players … even though they’ll be practicing next door, they will also, they’re competitive guys, probably going to want to play basketball or something afterwards against teammates.
And then there’s going to be some offices and stuff as well, then next door at the hotel will be a pool and other stuff. The hotel will be for the general public. But also in the documents filed with the city, the team and the developer said they will be using it for team travel every once in a while as well.
BRODIE: So players that are maybe coming into town, like on a rehab assignment if they’re injured or team officials coming in might be staying at the hotel as opposed to in the residences?
BROWN: Exactly. What some people don’t realize is that these spring training facilities are actually used all year long by the players. Teams use them for developing players, for rehabbing players. So having a hotel right there next to it will just be a lot easier to be like, “Hey, we’re staying at the Candlelight Inn or Candlelight Suites.”
And then they’re able to go to the facility right next door. We’re going to walk or take a golf cart or something.
BRODIE: So what happens to the residential units when it’s not spring training time?
BROWN: Most likely they’ll be sitting empty or there’s a chance other players will be coming for other reasons and stuff. The way the developers wrote about it, they expect there to be people there, some people there year round.
BRODIE: OK. And as you write, this is not something that’s unique to the Cubs or to Mesa. This is something that other teams around the Valley have done also near their spring training sites?
BROWN: Yeah. The company who’s doing this, Boyd Development Co., they’re based up in Scottsdale and they built similar things in Surprise for the Kansas City Royals and for both teams out in Goodyear — for the Cincinnati Reds and the Cleveland Guardians, they built similar facilities. None of those had a hotel connected to them, but similar player housing situations.
BRODIE: Housing, especially for minor league players, has been such a point of contention in baseball over the last number of years. Is this seen as a way to try to help that somewhat? I mean, you mentioned that nobody’s staying there for a super long period of time, although the developers believe there will be players or people in the residences year-round.
Is this a way to try to alleviate at least a cost for, you know, if you’re sort of a fringe major leaguer or a minor leaguer who doesn’t make a lot of money to be able to stay in a team-owned unit as opposed to having to buy your way into a hotel or rent an Airbnb or something?
BROWN: Yeah. With the team having its own place to stay, they don’t have to give out per diems or worry about, you know, are players able to pay or afford finding a place to stay when the player knows, “Hey, I gotta go to Mesa and they have a place for me to stay even If I’m sharing a player housing unit with a teammate,” which is something they’re used to already, traveling and stuff.
It just takes a lot of stress off of them. And it will save both sides of the players and the team ownership money.
BRODIE: It also probably makes sense, like, you don’t need a car necessarily, right? Or you don’t have to pay for an Uber to get somewhere if where you’re living is within walking distance of the stadium and all the practice field.
BROWN: Like we’re seeing in developments all over the Valley, the idea that you could live, work, and play all within the same place, I think, is happening here with Major League Baseball as well.
BRODIE: Do you expect this or do folks in this space expect this to continue to grow and more teams to be doing this?
BROWN: Yeah, I think a lot of teams will be looking at similar situations. Some of the places around town where their spring training is at, it might be harder. You know, when I think of Old Town Scottsdale or in Tempe where the Angels are, it might be a little bit more difficult to find, “Where can I build for players?”
But I think a lot of teams have looked at this already, and we’ll probably see more developments like this in the future.
BRODIE: Do we have a sense of what the timeline is for the Cubs and the developer to get this project up?
BROWN: So right now, the development’s just going through the early stages of the development review board in the city of Mesa. So this still will have quite a ways to go.
But once I think once they get through the permits and the city’s permission and everything, you get stuff in the ground, it’ll be coming up here. It’ll be in less than a year probably.
BRODIE: So potentially ready for next year, spring training maybe?
BROWN: Possibly next year, if not the year after for sure.
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