What should be done with Capital City Stadium? Columbia is asking developers for ideas
Apartments with a ball-park theme and restaurants and shops all around were once planned. Before that, there were talks about a Kroger grocery store, and before that a Walmart. But despite all the planning, none of the ideas have come through to repurpose or replace Columbia’s languid Capital City Stadium minor league baseball park.
Now, the city is again asking developers to come up with ideas for the stadium, which sits prominently downtown at the corner of Assembly Street and Dreyfuss Road on more than 15 acres of land.
The ballpark, which has hosted greats like Hank Aaron, was built in 1927. It was home to the minor league team Capital City Bombers, and later the Columbia Blowfish collegiate summer league team. But for the past decade, it’s been empty and overgrown.
The city came close to closing a deal in 2019 with Weddle Real Estate Investments, which planned to buy the property for $1.6 million to build apartments and retail stores. But after more than a dozen extensions, those plans also fell through.
The city of Columbia published a Request for Proposals Oct. 3, asking developers to submit plans to purchase the stadium from the city and redevelop it into a public good.
Columbia hopes to attract a “high impact, high value mixed-use” project to the site, according to the documents included with the request for proposals.
The city is also asking developers to include details about how the project would benefit the public and the surrounding community.
The city’s revived effort to redevelop the stadium comes a few months after a local baseball coach took up the mantle to revive the park himself.
Chris Dorsey, co-owner of Big Red Box dumpster company and coach for the American Legion Post Richland 215 baseball program, has been gathering support to keep the property as a baseball stadium.
Dorsey created a Facebook group in early August to garner support for his mission to save the park. It now has almost 2,000 members and thousands of posts in tribute to the stadium.
Dorsey plans to submit a proposal to the city showcasing why it would be valuable to maintain the stadium as a ballpark, he told The State.
He first got the idea to look at the stadium because it was expensive to find fields for his American Legion program, which has roughly 100 youth members, to play on, he previously told The State. But he sees it being used by other athletics programs in the area as well.
The city is accepting proposals for the stadium’s redevelopment until November 1.
