LOWELL — The City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to sell LeLacheur Park to the UMass Building Authority for $1 million. When complete, the deal, which has been months in the making, will transfer ownership of the stadium to UMass Lowell.
Terms include selling the park “as is … in its existing condition.” If at some point in the next 10 years UMass decides to sell the property, the city can exercise the option to purchase it.
City Manager Tom Golden said the full agreement is available on the city’s website and praised all the partners in the project who worked to make the deal happen.
“Newly appointed UMass Chancellor Julie Chen has been an excellent partner,” Golden said. “President (Marty) Meehan was one of the individuals who helped put this whole deal together.”
He also thanked the councilors for their patience in pursuing the negotiations.
“I’d like to say thank you to all who continued to weigh in to make this a better proposal for the residents in the city of Lowell,” Golden said.
The deal calls for UMass to invest $3 million in the ballpark over the next five years. The goal is to close on the purchase soon, Golden said.
“In the event that we have to move this through the Legislature, time is of the essence and we have to move fairly quickly,” he said.
The deal mirrors the one the city made with UMass in 2009, when it transferred ownership of the Tsongas Arena to the university, which committed to renovating and repairing the facility.
The baseball park, which is located on the banks of the Merrimack River, opened in 1998. It was built through the efforts of then-state Rep. Edward LeLacheur who secured the funding for the ballpark that bears his name.
For decades, the stadium was home to the Lowell Spinners, part of Minor League Baseball’s New York-Penn League, an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. The Spinners played to sold-out crowds in the nearly 5,000-seat park. It is also home to the UMass Lowell River Hawks baseball team.
The Spinners did not play any games in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That December, Major League Baseball restructured its Minor League Baseball relationship, and the number of minor league teams was reduced from 160 to 120. The Spinners did not make the final cut, and the Red Sox dropped the team as its affiliate.
When they were playing, the Spinners paid the city roughly $180,000 to use the stadium. The team also maintained the field and staffed the facility. All that revenue and support disappeared with the Spinners, leaving the city with mounting maintenance and repair costs.
“We were talking about a $4 (million) to $6 million debt over there,” Councilor Erik Gitschier said before the vote, but after the executive session in which the council discussed “negotiations relative to LeLacheur Baseball Stadium.”
“It’s a facility we simply couldn’t afford,” he said. “This agreement is in the best interests of the city and the taxpayers.”
Councilor Daniel Rourke referenced the long negotiations that ultimately yielded the outcome, and he congratulated Golden and his team for making it happen.
“From where we were 18 months ago, to this deal that we have right now, is a huge victory both for the city and the university,” Rourke said. “It will take care of all the debt we have left on the park. This is a huge benefit to Lowell and taxpayers.”
Councilor Paul Ratha Yem was more succinct, saying that, “As a city, we are not in the business of owning a baseball field.”
For a long time, though, the city was in the business of owning the ballpark, which provided revenue and entertainment for the Greater Lowell community. The councilors expressed hope that UMass could prove to be a more persuasive presence in wooing back professional baseball to the park.
That was the view expressed by U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan. The congresswoman previously organized a Save the Spinners task force, which focused attention on returning professional baseball to LeLacheur Park.
Moments after the council’s vote to authorize the transfer of LeLacheur Park to UMass, her office released a statement that “tonight’s vote by the Council gets us one critical step closer to the long overdue return of professional baseball to the City of Lowell.”
In an interview Wednesday morning, Meehan agreed UMass would have a better chance of bringing a professional baseball team back to LeLacheur Park and said the university has been in ongoing discussions with other leagues and teams. He said he envisions having professional and collegiate baseball coexist at the stadium, along with more public events for area residents to enjoy the park.
“I think both the city and the university felt that it would be better in the university’s hands to invest the resources needed to get the park in better condition,” Meehan said, noting the considerable upgrades required to allow the park to bring in another Red Sox affiliate.
He said the Tsongas Center “demonstrated that we are good at upgrading these facilities.”
“We’ve put over $14 million into the arena, and it’s a first-class facility,” Meehan said. “We envision LeLacheur Park with the same kind of upgrade and investment to make it … a more active facility.”
