Cal Ripken sports complex could be built in Saginaw - ABC 12 – WJRT – Flint, MI

(03/05/13) - Saginaw is hoping a Hall of Fame baseball player will be part of a project to build a youth sports complex in the city.
    
The sports complex could bring jobs and economic growth to not only Saginaw, but the entire region.

A team from the Ripken Design firm is in Saginaw to see if the city's a good fit.

We told you about this a couple of weeks ago, and this would be a long process to see if Cal Ripken would be interested in building a complex in Saginaw, but so far, the city is off to a good start.

"We rarely see this amount of community engagement early on," says Dan Taylor, of the Ripken Design company.

But that's what the Ann Arbor native and the members of the Ripken Design company were greeted with in Saginaw, a number of people who would like to see a youth sports complex built in the city. Cal Ripken, the Hall of Fame baseball player, has developed two such facilities, one in Maryland, the other in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  

"For Cal, and a lot of the way he operates, and the way this company operates, it's about teaching life lessons, using baseball as a way to do that," Taylor says.

Taylor says other sports can be included in a Saginaw project. A feasibility study is underway on what would work best, a study paid for by Eminence Group, which is owned by Saginaw native Delores McKinney. The idea for the sports complex was developed by the New E.R.A. Community Group, whose ultimate goal is to attract jobs.

"We have to continue to build the hope and the faith in the community that Saginaw can be a better place to live, work and interact," McKinney said.

She says a location has not been chosen for a possible sports complex in the city and funding for the project would come from a variety of sources. The owner of the Saginaw Athletic Club, who played college baseball, says the sport complex would attract visitors from several Great Lakes states.

"To have something like this that is more tournament oriented, to bring in people to stay here, for weekends and weeks at a time, to spend money, that's a big plug and a big play," Ryan McGraw said.

That feasibility study should be done within the next three months.