NORMAL - After months of discussions and scores of meetings, Heartland Community College, the town of Normal and baseball entrepreneur Mike Veeck have come to an agreement. | Commissioner: This will be great for community, Frontier League

And as a result, minor league baseball is coming to Normal.

The Heartland board of trustees voted Tuesday to approve a binding "memorandum of understanding" with the town of Normal and Veeck's Normal Professional Baseball LLC, clearing the final hurdle of a process to begin construction of a $12 million stadium where a professional, independent league team will begin play in 2010.

The town approved the same measure on Monday that will lead to a Veeck-led ownership group building a stadium on the Heartland grounds and placing a Normal team in the Frontier League.

"I think this is a huge opportunity and a tremendous opportunity. I believe in this deal," Veeck told the Heartland board. "We will build you a palace."

Heartland baseball, softball and soccer teams will play their games at the new stadium, which will feature artificial turf. The field will be put in first so the Hawks' baseball and softball squads will be able to use the facility by March 1, 2009.

"This is a good deal. We're getting a state of the art stadium facility plus practice fields at a price we can afford," Heartland President Jon Astroth said. "We like our partners. The town has been great to work with, and obviously the Veeck group is a premier group.

"It's been a lot of work, but it's nice to arrive at this point finally."

Heartland's board also rejected bids to build its own athletic complex that had come in at about $5 million, well over the school's estimate of $3.5 million.

According to the agreement, Heartland will contribute that $3.5 million to the stadium construction instead. Veeck's group will invest at least $11.5 million in the project, and Normal will provide a 1,000-space parking lot at a cost of $1.5 million.

"I'm thrilled," said Veeck. "I think it's a great deal for Heartland, I know it's going to be a great deal for us and the city gets what they want. That's how the best public-private relationships should work."

The stadium will feature a minimum of 3,500 chair-back seats with a capacity for an additional 2,000 people in four picnic areas. While the agreement calls for at least eight luxury suites, Veeck's plans include 14 or 15.

Veeck believes naming rights could bring in $2.5 to $3 million largely because of the stadium's proximity to Interstates 55, 74 and 39.

"That's a huge linchpin," said Veeck, who has a goal of 20 percent to 25 percent local ownership. "When you look where the ballpark is positioned, it's an advertiser's dream. There is tremendous potential there."

Veeck plans to include a Heartland classroom on the stadium premises.

"When you have Bill Murray, Jimmy Buffett and Jimmy Fallon as partners, we do things a little offbeat. And we do it quite frankly for (media) attention," he said. "It makes our advertising dollars go further."

Astroth said an onsite classroom would bring "a whole host of opportunities for students. Internships at the ballpark in food management, crowd control, sports management, we anticipate working on all those issues."

Nate Metzger, Heartland athletic director and baseball coach, is excited about the Hawks' future home.

"We're thrilled to take this on. It's kind of what we hoped would be the case," said Metzger. "With the leadership we've got and the ownership group, I think we'll be able to make this work for the best of everybody.

"Our goal from the beginning was to do things above and beyond what other programs have been able to do. This is another step, a big step in the right direction toward that. Hopefully, it will allow us to continue to kind of separate ourselves from our competition."

Alan Sender, chair of a committee that began the process of attracting an owner, called Veeck, Heartland and Normal "a fortuitous convergence of circumstances. Sometimes the stars are aligned and everybody works together."