George Mason University won’t build a temporary stadium for D.C.'s professional cricket club, the school announced Thursday.
The stadium proposed for the university’s west campus would have become home to the Washington Freedom and the GMU baseball team, but the school's president said the plan ultimately didn't align with the university's strategic plans.
Students and neighbors of the university rallyied in opposition to the proposed facility. It would have been a partnership between the school and the Freedom.
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GMU had said it also could be an opportunity to move its successful baseball team out of an aging field and share a 5,000-person stadium on west campus.
Student body Vice President Nell Palumbo shared suspicion about the proposal when she learned about it.
"They're usually pretty proud of things that benefit students and really happy to advertise them, so the fact that this is so under the table has been very suspicious to me and a lot of other students on campus," she told News4.
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Neighbors were suspicious, too. Cricket is played on a 360-degree grass field, and some neighbors couldn't understand why the university suggested putting a diamond inside a circular stadium.
"We're not against a baseball field,” said Geoff Keller, who lives across the road from the proposed site. “We would love a baseball field. We would lead the effort to get a baseball field. This is a cricket stadium with 10,000 fans that have no ties to the school and no ties to the state of Virginia, even."
He and his neighbors sent hundreds of comments to the university asking for answers and an explanation of why things were moving so fast.
The Freedom wanted to move quickly enough to host professional matches this year.
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