Posted Jul 30, 2026, 1:45 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2023
Location: San Antonio, TX
Posts: 51
|
|
San Antonio Missions ballpark opening pushed back a year amid construction delays
SABJ
July 29, 2026
Baseball fans and downtown leaders anxious to celebrate the long-anticipated opening of a new center city ballpark are in for a longer wait.
The timeline for completing construction of the stadium that will serve as a new home for the San Antonio Missions and extend the city’s more than century-long run in professional baseball has been pushed back a year. The new stadium will be designed to accommodate roughly 7,500 spectators — on a site along the redeveloped San Pedro Creek.
The ballpark is now slated to open in time for the beginning of the 2029 baseball season. Stakeholders have pointed to delays in the construction industry as one of the key factors in the decision to adjust the timeline.
“Construction schedules across everything are gapping out materially longer than even when we started design,” said Randy Smith, CEO of Weston Urban, the group engaged in the ballpark plan and significant surrounding development and a key part of the Missions ownership group.
Smith cited electrical infrastructure and labor challenges among the factors that led to the decision to extend the timeline.
The ballpark is aligned with Weston Urban’s plan to deliver as much as $1 billion worth of new mixed-use development around the stadium. The extended timeline will allow some of those projects, including new residential and hotel towers, to be further along in development by 2029 — a factor Smith says works in everyone’s favor, including the Missions.
City Manager Erik Walsh is confident the ballpark and the larger downtown development plan will play out as expected despite the timeline adjustment.
“We’re comfortable with it because the underlying basis of the agreement is tied very closely to the private development,” Walsh said.
It’s key, according to Bruce Hill, control person for the Missions’ ownership group and among the major players driving the ballpark project, that the Missions open a season in the new ballpark and not have to make a move from one stadium to another midway through their schedule.
Major League Baseball, which owns the minor leagues and had previously threatened to pull out of San Antonio if the city did not address its stadium concerns, is aware of the decision.
“They're supportive of the action and understand the reasons,” Hill said. “They have full faith that we’re going to get it done.”
The stadium project is still expected to cost roughly $160 million to construct, according to Walsh and Smith.
“We want the best ballpark, not the fastest ballpark,” Smith said.
|