Pat Cassidy doesn’t want to say that baseball is secondary in his $75-million ball-park venture, but he knows that, really, it is.
About 30 kilometres west of Edmonton, on the eastern edge of the city of Spruce Grove, he’s building a new home for his beloved Energy City Cactus Rats baseball team, which he’s owned since 2007 (it was formerly called the Prospects). But he understands the priorities. This is the Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) — stacked with college kids, many of whom are due back on campus by late summer. That means this place, the Energy City Metro Ballpark, will see games for fewer than four months a year. And, by Cassidy’s latest estimates, the ballpark, with surrounding amenities, will cover 65 acres.
That’s why, “the key factor is: What kind of fan experience can you create, and what do you have to do to get people to come to the ballpark and enjoy themselves?” asks Cassidy, who has a history in construction and development, and in organized sports in various ways, including playing baseball.
With capacity for approximately 3,500 fans, the ballpark is mainly inspired by Okotoks’s Seaman Stadium, home of the WCBL Dawgs, which Cassidy sees as setting “a high bar” for fan experience. The Dawgs are regarded as having one of the best development programs in Canada. He believes he’s creating a worthy rival. In a step up from Re/Max field, where his team played as the Prospects before losing the lease to the Riverhawks in 2019 and downsizing to a diamond in Sherwood Park, the new field will be surrounded (in phases) by year-round and seasonal amenities. They include a restaurant and microbrewery, a concert amphitheatre and 84 condo units, half of which will overlook the outfield. And to help make ends meet, a self-storage business will operate beneath the concourse. In short, it’s a beer and a hot dog place, and then some.
“I think you’re going to see this facility recognized as one of the top three in Canada,” says Cassidy.
Norman Leach, executive director of the Greater Parkland Regional Chamber of Commerce, already sees the project as a home run for the area and its roughly 4,000 businesses (750 of which are Chamber of Commerce members). Naturally, it will serve the 61,000 residents of Spruce Grove and the nearby town of Stony Plain, along with thousands more from surrounding Parkland County. But Leach expects the new attraction to cause tourists to linger (and spend) in the area, and draw Edmontonians, too.
“From a community point of view, I can’t imagine that it’s a bad thing,” he says.
There is a catch, however. The ballpark — once expected to have been operating by summer 2022 — was delayed due in part to COVID construction delays. As of February, construction progress was such that a projected home opener of June 7 was labelled “tentative” on the team website.
“It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” says Cassidy of his project. “It’s been the challenge of my lifetime but I feel like it’s been the challenge I was meant to take on.”
That drive keeps him from dwelling on the risk. “You can’t lay awake at night because you gotta get up and be sharp, and be ready to take on whatever the day is going to throw at you,” says Cassidy.
Or pitch at you. That’s part of what Leach feels is special about actually being at a game, which he never watches on TV. But in a ballpark, enjoying the sunshine and a cold drink, he likes seeing the drama unfold: the pitcher launching a hardball at 140 kilometres per hour, the batter preparing for the challenge by way of luck, skill, wits and force of will.
“They say that hitting a baseball at speed is the hardest feat in sports,” marvels Leach. “You have 1/100th of a second to get it right.”
Tough odds. For Cassidy, though, they’re just part of the game. Or, rather, the experience.
This article appears in the April 2025 issue of Edify
