'Oldest little league in Texas' responds to talk of building soccer stadium on fields

It's being called "200 South Lamar" -- the city-owned area behind the Zach Theater and Austin Parks and Rec.
               
There are athletic fields there, including Weber field, maintained and used by the South Austin Little League.
               
"We're the oldest little league in Texas.  We began in 1950 and we've been playing ever since then.  Every fall and spring," said South Austin Little League President Paul Purcell.
 
Purcell says 250 families participate, kids from 4 to 13 play ball there.
 
Purcell says representatives from the major league soccer team Columbus Crew reached out to him early on in the conversation about them possibly moving to Austin and putting a stadium there.
 
"Obviously they would love to be here and I told them 'well we love being here and we've been here since 1950 and we really wouldn't want to move away,'" Purcell said. 
 
Fox 7 spoke with team owner Anthony Precourt's Austin attorney Richard Suttle earlier this week.
               
"Relative to other sites in the area, it appears to be underutilized in a way that we can take the utilization that's going on now and actually move it a little bit away and make it better," Suttle said.
 
Some Austin City Council members have grave concerns about putting a stadium behind the Zach Theater.  Recently council asked city staff to come up with a list of places the stadium could go.  We'll find out next week if Butler Shores is even on that list.
 
"We have an open dialogue.  Again we're kind of seeing what the city does and hope that the city recognizes that there are other facilities or spots available that could probably actually have a bigger impact with parking availability, access to in and out of the stadiums," Purcell said.
 
Precourt Sports Ventures unveiled a couple of renderings this week of what the stadium might look like.  Suttle says it's not the Astrodome.  Low, non-intrusive and it would only seat about 20,000 people.
 
But one common fear from the community is the traffic this would bring.
 
"Here, we fight traffic just coming to our practices at 5:30 or games during the week," Purcell said.
 
Suttle says they plan to shuttle fans in and encourage walking or biking.