MARION, IL — It looks like there’s a future for Marion’s Rent One Park.

The ballpark, located in The Hill area of Marion, was home to the Southern Illinois Miners baseball team from 2007 until its ownership, Jayne and John Simmons of the Southern Illinois Baseball Group, retired and folded the team in October of this year.

At Monday night’s Marion City Council meeting, the Council discussed and approved a Memorandum of Understanding with Marion Stadium, LLC – a group owned in part by Rodney Cabaness who also owns Black Diamond in Marion. That’s according to City Spokesperson Cody Moake. Moake says Marion Stadium, LLC is purchasing Rent One Park and will be making upgrades to the stadium as well as exploring a new multi-sport complex north of the mall. Among a myriad of uses, the ballpark would serve as the championship level field for baseball, softball, soccer, and other possible sporting events. Moake says they plan to utilize the field to continue concerts and other unique events as well. Moake says the Memorandum of Understanding accepted the assignment of the agreement the city signed with Southern Illinois Baseball Group who built the stadium and owned the Miners.

There will be an amended agreement coming at a future council meeting that redefines some items in that original agreement according to Moake.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>