BabyCakes on the move. Place taken by Southern League team

Yesterday you could read here about the possibility of the New Orleans BabyCakes moving to Wichita. According to kwch.com, the mayor of Wichita, Jeff Longwell announced the upcoming move today. After the stadium lease expires (2020) the team will head to Kansas.

In minor league baseball circles, the move was a public secret. Negotiations with a Pacific Coast League team have been going on for months. The BabyCakes will not take their name with them to Wichita. The Southern League club involved in the plan will move to New Orleans and adopt the name BabyCakes.

This morning (US time), Mayor Jeff Longwell confirmed that the New Orleans BabyCakeswill come to Wichita after the 2020 season. Longwell also released early renderings of a new stadium which will replace Lawrence-Dumont Stadium and be the home of the new team.

According to Longwell, Wichita is not just building a baseball stadium, “We’re hoping to build a gathering place for the community.” The future ballpark will have a lot of amenities including a museum and home for the National Baseball Congress, a new pedestrian bridge across the river, an entrance from center field and a baseball village. Longwell expects that the stadium will attract a lot of restaurants and retail to the area.

The new ballpark will be adjacent to the Arkansas River. “As we have built this city, we’ve literally turned on our back on this river for decades and decades and decades. And now, we’re embracing the river as the great amenity it should be,” Longwell said.

The demolishing of Lawerence-Dumont Stadium and the construction of the new ballpark will be financed by STAR bonds which will capture sales tax generated in the area. The new stadium will have 7,000 fixed seats and a capacity of 10,000-11,000.

Thanks to this move, the independent Wichita WingNuts will have to move elsewhere. The team has gotten thirty days to clear out of Lawerence-Dumont Stadium.