Chino Hills, CA: Oxnard ends deal with Big League Dreams

After six years of starts and stops, Oxnard has decided to turn out lights on Big League Dreams.

By unanimous vote, the Oxnard City Council agreed late Tuesday to sever its relationship with the Chino Hills firm to build out the final phase of Oxnard's 75-acre College Park with a complex of its replica sports fields and a restaurant.

A 2005 agreement expires next week, and the council instructed City Attorney Alan Holmberg to send notice of its decision not to extend the deal and seek a refund of a $400,000 license fee paid to the company.

Big League Dreams, which specializes in building scaled-down replicas of famous ballparks such as Boston's Fenway Park and New York's Yankee Stadium, was seeking an extension. Officials previously said the firm was eager to move forward with the Oxnard proposal.The move to kill the deal pleased several public speakers who raised concerns over construction costs, the replica concept and the city's proposed relationship with Big League Dreams, which would operate the ball fields and restaurant with a long-term lease. College Park already includes soccer fields, volleyball courts, a dog park and other amenities.

"It's time to end the relationship," Councilwoman Carmen Ramirez said.

The city owns the park land and now can develop it as a city project or seek another partner.

Holmberg cautioned that if council chose to abandon further negotiations with Big League Dreams, it could have to forego the $400,000 refundable license fee.

But the council was convinced it had satisfied its end of the deal, which required the city to make every "good faith" effort to get the deal approved and to secure financing to build it. The city could sell bonds or seek other debt financing, but otherwise the city did not have available funds to cover construction costs, city officials said.

Because parts of Oxnard's College Park were purchased by the city with federal grants, the city must get confirmation from the National Park Service that the Big League Dreams concept doesn't violate those terms. A Big League Dreams concept was submitted for review in 2008, generating several suggested changes.

No revised concepts has been submitted since then, officials said.