Anyone who has been outside in the last four months should question the motives and judgment of the deck park advocates.
It’s hot. El Paso has been breaking records for high temperatures — number of hundred degree days, hottest temperature for a date, hottest year — almost every day. And it’s not getting cooler.
Here’s a story from ElPasoMatters.com about the deck park:
On the top floor of the Blue Flame Building Downtown on Tuesday evening [July 30, 2024], the [Paso del Norte Foundation] and its consultant Stantec presented conceptual images that show the deck plaza spanning five city blocks in length. It had numerous features such as a dog park, gardens, a police substation, a performance stage and a sports “fieldhouse,” among others.
Several plots of land in the park were left blank – slated only as “future development” – which brought down the cost estimate.
A “fieldhouse”? “Several plots of land . . . left blank”?
Merrian Webster says a fieldhouse is:
1 : a building at an athletic field for housing equipment or providing dressing facilities
2 : a building enclosing a large area suitable for various forms of athletics and usually providing seats for spectators
The “fieldhouse” and “several plots of land . . . left blank” reinforces my original thesis that the deck park is only being built because MountainStar Sports Group wants to put a soccer stadium on top of it, and when I say that MountainStar Sports Group wants to put a soccer stadium on top it, I mean that MountainStar Sports Group wants the taxpayers to pay for a soccer stadium on the deck park.
Here’s a KFOXtv.com story from May 25, 2016:
There’s even talks of building the [soccer stadium] above Interstate 10. It’s called “capping the freeway.”
“Just from a transformational civic standpoint. I think it would be great if our city would look at capping our freeway and creating some great civic space, park space and other uses potentially,” [MountainStar Sports Group Executive Chairman Josh] Hunt said.
. . .
“I think anything that happens. it’s going to have to require city and county participation in some form, so we plan to be meeting with both entities,” Hunt said.
And is the lack of a deck park El Paso’s most pressing concern? Shouldn’t we spend more money on maintaining our streets, or early childhood education, or feeding the hungry?
Shouldn’t our governments spend less money so property owners pay less in taxes and renters pay less in rent?
I can dream, can’t I?
I was at that meeting and came to the same conclusion. We were asked to write our questions and comments on post-it notes and affix them to the design layout. I wrote “stealth soccer stadium” on my note and pasted it to the “fieldhouse.” I asked one of the city people there about it and was assured that the “fieldhouse” was too small for soccer. I did not believe it. The estimated cost for the deck park was presented as $207M.