New owner sought for old stadium

PORTALES - Stadium for sale. Inquire within.

Eastern New Mexico University is seeking a new owner for its former Greyhound Stadium, one of its oldest and most far-flung assets, as it enters its fourth year of dormancy.

Jeff Elwell, chancellor of the ENMU system and president of the Portales campus, said counsel is working on "for sale" advertisements in September.

The price? That's up to you, potential buyer.

"It's a bid process," Elwell said. "We don't ask."

The former Greyhound Stadium, built in 1969, lies about 8 miles northeast of the ENMU campus off of US-70. It has not been used for an official game since the 2015 season. The football program used the stadium for scrimmages after its final official season there, and kept the stadium ready to go in 2016 in case of an unforeseen disaster at the new site.

But once the newest incarnation of Greyhound Stadium successfully hosted the Greyhounds' 2016 win over Western New Mexico, the school never looked back - or rather, northeast - again.

The concrete structure and its associated football field are still visible from satellite maps provided on smartphone GPS apps, but the once-green grass has faded to yellow with faded yard markings. Its lighting is no longer in use, and at night a motorist could drive by and never know a stadium was there.

"We're not under the gun or anything," ENMU Regents Vice President Terry Othick said. "But it does look weird when you drive by the stadium. We'll have to see what interest there is."

Elwell said nobody's made an offer, but numerous parties have thrown out suggestions for how they'd use the facility.

When the bid process begins, Elwell estimates a 30-day timeframe, and once the bids are in and unsealed, "It's really up to the board of regents; they have to decide whether to sell it."

The university owns two parcels of land in the area - an approximate 254 acres that includes the stadium, and a 35-acre parcel that holds the rest stop between the stadium and Cacahuate Road (NM 202). Othick and Regent Lance Pyle said it was their understanding the plan was to sell the fenced area that contains the stadium, and Othick noted ENMU's biology department does research on some of the land surrounding the stadium.

"I personally want to make sure, and I'm sure some other regents feel the same," Othick said, "is if it's sold what will it become? We don't want that property to turn into something that's not desirable. Of course, when you sell something, you might not have control over it."

The regents will likely rely heavily on a property appraisal when they consider bids, with Othick noting the board is rarely in the position where it's selling property.

Roosevelt County does not have an assessed value for the parcels because the point of assessment is to calculate taxable value and they've been owned by ENMU, a tax-exempt organization, for about 50 years.

"I think it needs to be put out to public advertisement, and that's what the regents are doing," Pyle said.

"Hopefully, someone will be interested and it would bring an economic development opportunity to Roosevelt County and the surrounding areas."

There's no specific timeline for the regents to make a sell-or-keep decision. They're scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. on Sept. 7, but the agenda indicates a work session with only information items and nothing dealing with the facility.