Developer awaits final casino decision
Rockford developer Kurt Carlson has been planning for an adjacent development along Interstate 90 ever since the Beloit Casino Complex began to take shape.While the casino plan has gone through many twists and turns, his original ideas have changed little over the past six years.
When preliminary plans were first unveiled in mid-1999, Carlson listed the following options for about 80 acres of land under option, facing I-90: an outlet mall, a classic auto and sports car museum, an antique mall and recreation of an early 1900s town, additional hotels, food shops and other retail, and a new sports stadium.
There is a joke about there not being a need to recreate an early 1900's town in Beloit, just a need to walk about ten minutes from the team hotel to get that early 20th century experience. But, I'm not going to be the one to make it.
What about the sports stadium for the Snappers? Why aren't they calling it a baseball stadium?
The sports stadium idea still has potential, Carlson said, but it would depend on whether the Beloit Snappers would consider relocating to tthe site.
“One of the big advantages of building a stadium next to a casino is that you can share parking. That's a big part of building a ballpark. You can build a ballpark on six acres, but you need 20 acres with parking,” Carlson said. “It's a distinct possibility (as a site for the Snappers), but we'd have to work something out.”
Dennis Conerton, Beloit Snappers board chairman, said the site was considered a few years ago when the idea was first proposed, but he doesn't think it's something the Snappers will be looking into as a new home.
“We did have a conversation, and he showed us the site, but what we needed was larger acreage,” Conerton said. “There was a narrow parcel that wasn't conducive to the property. What he had was more designed for independent leagues, and not along the lines of what we're required to have as a minor league team.”
Conerton said another concern would be the proximity of the new RiverHawks stadium Carlson recently constructed near Riverside Boulevard and I-90.
“It's within nine miles - I don't think we'd want to be that close, so that's not something we would be considering at this point,” Conerton said.
And so it continues...
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