Columbia’s Segra Park reopens as a public park today. What to know before you visit
Baseball season may be over, but Columbia’s Segra Park is about to come back to life.
For the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city-owned baseball stadium will reopen as a public park, the Columbia Fireflies announced on Monday.
Beginning Nov. 1, the park will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Besides taking in the sites of the baseball diamond, the concourse at Segra Park is a popular spot for walkers. A complete circuit of the concourse adds up to a third of a mile.
The Fireflies’ team store, the Mason Jar, will also be open weekdays through November, the team announced, with store hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Fridays.
The 9,000-seat ballpark opened as the home of Columbia’s minor league team in 2016. When it wasn’t hosting games or other events, Segra Park doubled as a public city park until the coronavirus shut down hit in 2020. All city parks officially closed at the beginning of the pandemic, and the Fireflies’ 2020 season was postponed and eventually canceled.
But most COVID-related restrictions on outdoor gatherings have since been lifted, and the baseball team played a full season at Segra Park this past summer. Now joggers are free to take advantage of its concourse again during the off-season.
The park will remain open for the rest of the year, except during holidays. It will close at noon on Wednesday, Nov. 24, for Thanksgiving and reopen Monday, Nov. 29. It will also be closed Thursday, Dec. 23, and reopen Monday, Jan. 3, 2022.
Segra Park is at the center of the BullStreet development on the grounds of the former state mental hospital.
This story was originally published November 1, 2021 at 10:10 AM.
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