City council is throwing the fate of Telus Field back to baseball fans.
Councillors agreed to hold off for at least five years on deciding what will happen to the stadium, after considering a proposal to demolish it in favour of new housing developments on Wednesday.
Mayor Don Iveson said in that time, council will look at all options for the future of the stadium.
“We’re even going to look at an option where the city takes it back and runs it,” he said.
In the meantime, Iveson encouraged baseball fans to go to games in order to help make the stadium financially viable.
City staff admitted only low level baseball will be played at Telus, since there’s been no interest from Triple-A or Double-A teams to make it their home field.
Council spent all afternoon Tuesday and all morning Wednesday discussing options for the field and for the Rossdale neighbourhood.
Iveson said council has big plans for that area, but now is not the time to act on them.
“I think there’s a lot of neat options, but I don’t think we need to put ourselves under pressure to solve those today,” he said.
“Realistically, we’re not going to have funds available to do anything other than stabilization over the next couple of years.”
He said council would like to create a higher density urban community, while taking advantage of the rich aboriginal history and river valley access in the area.
He thinks the redevelopment will need to be done in stages.
“This is special, and when the time is right, it will work.”
