Columbia’s Capital City Stadium to stay standing as yet another development deal falls through
Columbia’s historic Capital City Stadium, where baseball great Hank Aaron once played, should already be a pile of rubble. Plans to demolish the stadium and develop a new retail hub in its place have been in the works for years.
In January, developer Andrew Weddle told The State “it’s pretty much a done deal.”
Well, that deal has fallen through, leaving Capital City Stadium standing for the foreseeable future. It is just the latest snag in a decade-long effort to put the venue to good use.
Some in the city want to change tack and reevaluate how the city is going about finding developers for the property.
“We’ve been trying to make something happen at that ballpark for over a decade,” Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said. “After the downturn caused this recent deal to fall through, my opinion is that we should clean out that whole area and market the location to find someone who can turn it into something beneficial.”
Weddle’s firm, Weddle Real Estate Investments, inked a deal with the city in 2019 to buy the property from the city for $1.6 million. He planned to build a 310-unit apartment complex along with 20,000 square feet of retail space.
Progress was delayed when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Ultimately, those delays helped kill the project.
That deal falling through was first reported by The Post and Courier.
Before Weddle’s proposal, Kroger had considered building a store at the site but pulled out in 2017. Before that, in 2011, plans to build a Walmart at the site also fell through.
The park was active in minor league and collegiate baseball for nearly 90 years but hasn’t hosted a game since 2014.
Pittsburgh Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss paid for the stadium to be built in 1927, after the Pirates’ eventual minor-league affiliate the Comers’ usual field suffered fire damage. The Columbia Reds, Capital City Bombers and the Columbia Blowfish all called the park home at one time as well. Hank Aaron — as a member of the Jacksonville Braves — played his last minor-league game at the stadium, against the Columbia Reds.
Historic Columbia has also been working on a documentary about the iconic stadium.
