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E-mail This StoryOnce upon a time shoppers were brought from across the region to Mesquite to take in the sights and offerings of the first indoor shopping mall in the Southwest.
Big Town Mall was not just a place. It was an experience.
It died a piece at a time and eventually Big Town Mall just disappeared.
That same 80-acre site could once again bring folks from across the region and nation to Mesquite, as Monday the city council unanimously approved a project on the site which is expected to renew the western entry to the city.
A project by Kent Jones Inc. will merge the new and the old. The existing exhibition hall, arcade and bowling alley will be joined by a project to build 10 baseball fields, a hotel, amphitheater, soccer or football fields, basketball courts in an indoor training facility and pad sites along U.S. 80.
“We’ve even had some discussions with minor league teams coming in,” said Omar Washington, developer of the project with Kent Jones Inc.
That team would most likely be an independent team not unlike the Fort Worth Cats or the new team to come to Grand Prairie. Washington describes Mesquite as a great baseball town. The city was overlooked when the Texas Collegiate League began opening franchises throughout North Texas for a wooden-bat league stocked with some of the top college players in the country. Now, the city could stand to get a professional baseball team.
“It has been great news to us to hear something so exciting happening at the old Big Town Mall site,” said Councilman Dennis Tarpley.
Without the minor league team in the project, the city believes it is a project which can have a regional and national draw. Adding a professional sports team would just add to the appeal and could make Mesquite like a Frisco, tying a professional baseball team with the Mesquite Championship Rodeo and Evil’s Bowl Speedway.
“This is a wonderful project for us,” said Councilman John Heiman. “When people come to our city they are going to say this is what Mesquite is about. We’re about family recreation.”
The city council approved both site plans with and without a minor league baseball stadium.
E-mail Brian Porter at bporter@acnpapers.com or comment on this story at www.scntx.com.
