SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – A major player in the off-course golf entertainment business has expressed interest in coming to Shreveport.
That’s just one of the types of opportunities Mayor Adrian Perkins says the city is exploring for the development of the soon-to-be-former Fair Grounds Field.
“So, we’re having conversations with golf companies. As a matter of fact, a pretty big golf company was supposed to come here in March of 2020, their number-three person at the company,” Perkins told KTAL NBC 6.
“The reason why I can’t elaborate on name and details such as that is just because, a lot of times, it will mess up the deal. We sign nondisclosure agreements, so we can’t talk about it, but we’re in contact with golf companies, were in contact with, some baseball companies and with other entertainment companies to that area and we’re gonna, you know, we’re gonna get what’s best for our community.”
Topgolf, BigShots Golf, and Drive Shack are all Dallas-based and make up the top three off-course golf and entertainment venues in the U.S.
Fair Grounds Field has remained empty and continued to deteriorate since the gates were locked in 2011. In spite of numerous grassroots attempts to save the iconic baseball stadium on the Louisiana State Fair Grounds, the city has deemed the property “surplus” and hired a contractor to tear it down.
It is now slated for demolition by the end of the year.
Opened in 1986, Fair Grounds Fields was once considered one of the top ballparks in minor league baseball. For more than two decades, it was home to the Shreveport Captains, a minor league professional baseball team in the Texas League, and a “farm team” for the San Francisco Giants.
After the original Captains were sold to a new owner and moved to Laredo, Texas in 2000, other teams tried, but it just wasn’t the same. Attendance fell off. The gates were locked in 2011, and Fair Grounds Field fell further and further into disrepair until it was ultimately condemned.
Perkins has previously said the city has been working on a number of improvements in the area around the property that are expected to raise property values, including applying for a federal grant to improve the nearby medical corridor.
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