RBI Austin, the nonprofit baseball and softball program, is scheduled to break ground on its Youth Development Complex at 7401 Loyola Lane in East Austin at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 23, according to an invitation posted this week. According to ATX Things' review of city and state records, the project carries three very different price tags: $140 million on each of five city building permits, $14 million on a state filing, and a $6.2 million campaign budget from 2024.
When is the RBI Austin groundbreaking, and can you go?
An invitation posted to Instagram and shared by the Colony Park neighborhood's Facebook page reads: "You're invited to attend the RBI Austin Youth Development Complex groundbreaking," Oct. 23, 2026, 10 a.m., 7401 Loyola Ln, Austin, TX 78724, with an RSVP. We could not open the flyer itself, and RBI Austin's own homepage did not mention the event when we read it Oct. 15, so treat the RSVP link on those posts as the way in. Parking and attendance limits were not published in anything we found.
We have not contacted RBI Austin. If you plan to attend, confirm the time and RSVP through their channels first. We found no local press coverage of the event.
AI-generated illustration of the kind of site. Not a photo of 7401 Loyola Lane.
Who is RBI Austin, and what is it building?
RBI Austin says it uses baseball and softball to "engage and develop inner-city Austin youth." It grew from 118 kids in 2011 to 1,706 in 2025, by its own count, and describes itself as an MLB-affiliated program. Per its Nov. 21, 2024 press release, it bought 33 acres off Loyola Lane in 2018 and has operated mostly out of school and city fields, which limits it to certain days, times and weather.
The planned "permanent home," in that release: a headquarters with multipurpose rooms for mentoring, academic support and job training, a weight room, and a covered turf field with batting cages and sports performance facilities. The site is private land. The state filing says the project is "privately funded, on private land for private use."
Why do three records give three different costs?
This is the part a reader skimming permit databases would get wrong, and our own database carries the error.
| Record | What it says | Date |
|---|---|---|
| City of Austin building permits (five) | $140,000,000 on each permit | Issued Oct. 13, 2026 |
| Texas Dept. of Licensing and Regulation, TABS2026021330 | $14,000,000 estimated cost, 45,483 sq ft | Registered May 27, 2026 |
| RBI Austin capital campaign | $6,232,336 project budget; $5,449,463 raised | Press release Nov. 21, 2024 |
Sources: City of Austin permits 2026-134292 through 134295 and 134297 BP via the city's public permit search, read in our Zabalist database Oct. 15; TDLR project TABS2026021330; the RBI release linked above.
The five permits cover an admin building with offices, a flex hall and fitness space; a prefab metal covered-field building; a free-standing shade structure; a utility building; and a dumpster enclosure. A dumpster enclosure is not a $140 million building. The city's system appears to stamp the same project-wide figure on every sub-permit, and our own Zabalist project record for the site shows $700 million, which is $140 million counted five times.
So which number should you believe? The $14 million state filing is the only one that comes with a square footage, an owner and a scope you can check: roughly a 7,200-square-foot admin building, a 38,000-square-foot covered field and an outdoor baseball field. The $6.2 million figure is a 2024 fundraising budget, and the records do not explain the gap between it and $14 million. The scope may have grown. We do not know, and have not asked.
Do not repeat "$140 million" or "$700 million" for this project. Those figures come from a valuation field that repeats across sub-permits. Neither is a reported construction cost.
What do the filings say about timing?
The state filing lists a July 1, 2026 start and a Dec. 1, 2027 completion. The city issued the five building permits on Oct. 13, ten days before the groundbreaking invitation date. A ceremony after permits is the ordinary order of things, but we have not seen a construction schedule from RBI Austin, so Dec. 2027 is a filing date, not a promised opening.
One loose end: the city's separate site plan case for the property, SP-2022-0567C, appears in our database with a status of "Inactive." We do not know what that means for this project, given that building permits were issued. The case opened in 2022 and describes "a baseball park with associated improvements." The site plan record is on Zabalist.
AI-generated illustration of a covered-field building under construction.
What else is filed nearby?
📋Daily permit data from City of Austin
Quick facts for locals
- What: RBI Austin Youth Development Complex groundbreaking.
- When: Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, 10 a.m., per the invitation.
- Where: 7401 Loyola Ln, Austin, TX 78724.
- Who: RBI Austin, a nonprofit; executive director Matt Price is the contact on the state filing's owner line (Homeplate Properties).
- Cost: $14 million per the state filing. The city's $140 million is not a cost.
- Still unknown: parking, the RSVP cap, an opening date, and whether the 2024 fundraising goal was fully met.
FAQ
Is the RBI Austin complex a city park? No. RBI Austin bought the land in 2018, and the state filing describes the project as privately funded on private land.
How much will it cost? The state filing estimates $14,000,000. The city permits list $140,000,000 each, but that value repeats across five sub-permits and is not a reported cost.
When will it open? The state filing lists a Dec. 1, 2027 completion. RBI Austin has not published an opening date that we found.
Who is building it? The city permits list The Burt Group as contractor; the state filing lists VLK as the design firm.
Records read Oct. 15, 2026. If RBI Austin or the city corrects any figure here, we will add a dated note.
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