A chance to use the graphic

From WCLO:

Team owners say new Snappers stadium could be open by 2012

Plans are back on track for a new stadium for the Beloit Snappers, and club owners say the first pitch at a new ballpark could come as early as 2012.

In 2006, the Rock County Board of Supervisors shot downs plans for a project that would have included a new Snappers stadium at the intersection of Avalon Road and Interstate 90/39. Since then, the club's owners and supporters have regrouped and looked at several other sites, said Snappers Chairman Dennis Conerton.

Last year, the club settled on a 20-acre site in Beloit Gateway Business Park.

"We're very confident that we can do this," Conerton said Thursday. "We were confident before, but we never really had a specific site.

"With the Avalon Road site, we were not the driver in what turned out to be a very complicated project. We were an indirect beneficiary in the project."

Conerton and the Snappers organization have long said their present home—Pohlman Field at Beloit's Telfer Park—is inadequate and antiquated for minor league baseball, in which the Snappers play as a Class A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.

This part is interesting.

Conerton said the new stadium would include all the modern-day amenities of other minor league stadiums. Fixed seating would increase from 3,000 to 4,000, and other seating options would likely push capacity to 5,000, he said.

A suite level and other portions of the facility would be enclosed so year-round use—and revenue—would be possible.

"It would be a very fan-friendly facility that would appeal to a broad range of people," Conerton said. "Being along the Interstate, it would be a regional draw with easy access.

This part is not a surprise.

Conerton compared the Beloit proposal to the reality that is Fox Cities Stadium, an improved minor league facility that has been successful in Appleton.

A date of 2013 is thrown out as more likely opening date.

To be honest, I cannot wait until I can retire that graphic up top.