Tucson misses spring baseball; Chandler has no regrets

• As recently as 2008%2C Tucson hosted spring training for three teams. But distance between Tucson teams and those in the Valley proved to be an obstacle.
• Tucson%27s hotel revenue in March has dropped sharply.
• Chandler%2C which has focused on developing itself as a tech hub%2C doesn%27t miss hosting a Cactus League team. The Milwaukee Brewers played there from 1986 through 1997.

As the Cactus League winds down what might be its most successful season yet, Tucson still looks longingly to metro Phoenix for the dollars those games once brought.

Chandler, on the other hand, barely misses the games it once hosted.

Spring training continues to grow and thrive in Arizona, but the former sites view their has-been status differently.

"When you lose a major-league sport, there's damage to our economy," said Brent DeRaad, president and CEO of Visit Tucson. "There's still a hole where baseball used to be."

Tucson began hosting spring baseball beginning in 1947, but that ended in 2011, when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies moved to Salt River Fields outside Scottsdale, consolidating the Cactus League to within a 45-minute drive around the Valley. Chandler hosted the Milwaukee Brewers from 1986 through 1997.

Today, Chandler is perhaps better known as the home of major operations of the Intel Corp. The Brewers now play in Maryvale Baseball Park on the west side of Phoenix. It is an aging facility, and it is no secret the team would like better facilities. Still, Mark Coronado, the Cactus League president, said a return to Chandler is unlikely.

"If you look at Chandler and what they've done with their technology sector, it's clear they went in a different direction," he said. "Now you've got a magnet there in technology that's second to none in the country."

Dave Bigos, a spokesman for the mayor and council in Chandler, said, "The landscape is much different than when the Brewers left. People were coming to the games, but they weren't spending any money."

The Brewers' old Compadre Stadium is now vacant and crumbling. The facility is too small by current spring-training standards, and Chandler officials are weighing redevelopment options that have nothing to do with baseball.

Although some wistful fans may want the Brewers back, Bigos said there is nowhere to put them in Chandler.

"We probably just don't have enough attractive land available," he said. "We're coming up close on vacant-land buildout."

Tucson has land — too much of it separating it from the Valley's teams. The long drive between Tucson and metro Phoenix for spring games is a major obstacle to the Cactus League's return there.

As recently as 2008, Tucson hosted spring training for three teams. In the years since, it has lured Major League Soccer teams to train there in February and hosts collegiate baseball and softball tournaments.

But DeRaad said losing spring training was "very detrimental" to the area's economy.

Between 2011 and 2013, hotel revenue for March in the Tucson area averaged $34.8 million, according to figures collected by Smith Travel Research, which tracks hotel-industry performance trends. That's down substantially from the 2007 peak of $49 million.

Tucson's hotel revenue for March now compares with what West Valley hotels report. During the same three-year span, West Valley hotels averaged $37.6 million.

Sales-tax records for Pima County as a whole show overall retail for March grew from $493 million in 2010, the last year with Cactus League baseball, to $691 million in March 2013, a 40 percent increase.

In Maricopa County, total retail sales grew 55 percent in the same period. The rest of the state, which roughly matches the sales volume of Pima County and doesn't have spring training, grew 75 percent.

Republic reporter Michelle Mitchell contributed to this article.