UVSC stadium to get $2 million

OREM — After striking out twice, Utah Valley State College may have hit a home run with Brent and Kim Brown.

The automobile dealer and his wife signed their names to a deal Wednesday promising $1 million to the school in exchange for the naming rights to the college's baseball stadium for the next 10 years.

The stadium, which will be called Brent Brown Ballpark, is home to the Orem Owlz minor league baseball team and UVSC's men's baseball and women's softball squads.

"We are excited that this is a first-class facility, and it will have a first-class name associated with it," UVSC President William Sederburg said Wednesday at a press conference announcing the deal.

Phoenix homebuilder Ira Fulton will match the Browns' donation with $1 million of $5 million he promised to donate to encourage lawmakers to bestow university status on UVSC.

UVSC will become Utah Valley University July 1, 2008, and Fulton will donate the $1 million for the stadium over the next five years.

On Wednesday, the Browns gave UVSC the first of 10 annual $100,000 installments — the first actual check UVSC has received from a would-be naming rights donor.

The Browns are the third donors to promise big money for naming rights.

In 1999, Utah County businessman Gary Brinton pledged $750,000 for naming rights, but the deal fell through two years later because he couldn't agree with college administrators on the size, scope and cost of the project, college officials said.

In 2003, Craig Pickering and Heath Johnston, the developers of Parkway Crossing apartment and retail complex in Orem, pledged $1.7 million for naming rights.

In 2004, Johnston backed out of the Parkway Crossing project, and in November 2004, when Parkway Crossing's first payment was due, money never came.

At the time, a college spokesman said Parkway Crossing was having cash-flow problems because of low vacancy rates.

The Deseret Morning News has tried to reach Pickering for more than two years to discuss the unfulfilled baseball-stadium pledge. He has not returned phone calls, including one to his home Wednesday.

UVSC has made all the bond debt payments on time, including the portions Parkway Crossing had agreed to pay, with revenue from the campus bookstore and food services department.