And Now, All We Have Left of the Ballpark on the Trinity is This Conceptual Rendering

It's been, what, seven months since last we saw John Bryant and Byron Pierce's conceptual rendering for the planned minor-league ballpark on the banks of the Trinity River. Since then, especially recently, several Friends of Unfair Park have wondered in the comments and via e-mail whatever became of that daydream, which was pitched as a "sixty-acre, $500 million entertainment, sports, retail, and residential complex" and was supposed to begin construction on the abandoned JPI project site over the summer, according to what Pierce told us in May.

Short answer: It's dead.

I tried calling Bryant and Pierce's Reunion Sports Group LLC. The number, posted on their April press release, has been disconnected. Then I tried calling Richard Seib's Seib Family Limited Partnership. The number has been disconnected. But NBC5's Ken Kalthoff found Dick, who says that, sorry, but the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers' decertification of the Trinity's levees killed the ballpark. Interesting. The project, which was full-steam-ahead back in May, was announced a whole two months after the Corps rated the levees unacceptable and City Manager Mary Suhm warned nearby property owners that the Corps's decision could "affect flood insurance needs."

Been down this road before: Pierce's 2007 efforts to bring minor-league ball to downtown also died a quick, quiet death. But Bryant told Unfair Park in May that this time it was different. This time, Seib had actually acquired the property. Hunh. Guess it's time to find some phones that haven't been disconnected.