Dallas-area Among Potential Sites for Professional Cricket Team, Stadium

A sports ventures firm will work with real estate giant JLL to plan and build eight cricket stadiums across the country, including Dallas.Global Sports Ventures LLC sought JLL's sports and entertainment group for its advisory services as part of an effort to bring a professional cricket league to the United States by 2020. JLL will manage the site selection and oversee the development of eight stadiums in Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, Washington D.C., New Jersey and New York. Those locations were chosen on the basis that the sport already has established followings there, predominantly through Asian populations. In Dallas-Fort Worth, Asian populations are among the fastest growing ethnic groups. In the 2010 census, Collin County counted nearly 32,000 Asian residents of Indian ethnicity. That county hosted a national youth cricket tournament in 2014. In Dallas County, about 37,000 Asian Indians lived there in 2010. Outside of India, the U.S. makes up cricket's second highest viewership, said Jignesh Pandya, the Philadelphia real estate developer behind the plan. The sport is played with bowlers (similar to American baseball pitchers), batsmen and fielders and the action occurs on a large grass, turf or clay field. Matches can often last for hours.The Texas stadium will be in Dallas, said Pandya, whose ties to the city also come via his work as a franchisee of Plano-based Pizza Hut. The stadium's location will be determined in the next several weeks, said JLL international director David Demarest.The complexes, which Pandya estimates will cost a combined $2.4 billion to build, would include a cricket stadium, parking, and mixed-use lifestyle centers with restaurants and hotels, as well as office, residential and retail space. The projects are expected to create 17,000 jobs.Demarest said the site search will focus on areas that are desirable from a mixed-use perspective with access to freeways and other means of transportation. The stadium would be the retail complex's anchor.  Continue reading...