Mesa Mayor assures new Chicago Cubs stadium will be fine

People who are criticizing plans for the Chicago Cubs' new Mesa stadium may be jumping the gun, Mayor Scott Smith said this week. Long-awaited drawings of the facility were released last month, showing far fewer Chicago-esque architectural flourishes than were included in preliminary sketches pitched to voters before they approved the project in 2010. Newspaper editorials and some letters to the editor were not complimentary. But Smith said the newest sketches are still preliminary. The final product, he said, will depend on how much it costs to build other parts of the baseball complex and whether the Cubs are willing to spend any of their own money on it. Mesa is committed to spending no more than $84 million for the stadium and $15 million for associated infrastructure. The $15 million includes enlarging and moving the lake at next-door Riverview Park, as well as other park upgrades. Smith admitted that the drawings released in May were "very, very sparse." "You can't really tell the finishes that go in," he said. "We haven't even really decided what the walls will be finished in, how they'll look."

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