Developer who planned apartments, shops at Capital City Stadium sues Columbia
Columbia’s Capital City Stadium was finally on the cusp of a transformation. At the start of 2022, developer Andrew Weddle said plans to reimagine the long-standing, long-vacant ballpark on Assembly Street in the historic Olympia neighborhood were “pretty much a done deal.”
By the end of 2022, city leaders had said the deal fell through.
Now, Weddle’s Ballpark, LLC is suing the city and other entities over the deal.
Once home to Columbia’s former minor league baseball team the Capital City Bombers, Capital City Stadium has sat empty for more than a decade.
In 2019, Weddle inked a deal with the city to redevelop the stadium into The Ballpark, a complex with more than 300 apartments and 20,000 square feet of space for storefronts. But by the end of 2022, city leaders said that the deal fell through.
“We’ve been trying to make something happen at that ballpark for over a decade,” Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said at the time. “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.”
Then in October 2024, the city put a call-out to developers to repurpose the stadium site. Weddle’s Ballpark LLC was one of the bidders. In August 2025, the city indicated it would begin negotiating with a different developer, operating under the LLC FHNC Holdings.
Weddle’s company filed a lawsuit over the process April 1 in Richland County Circuit Court, naming the city of Columbia, as well as local real estate firm Trinity Partners, and various Providence Group affiliated LLCs connected to the possible future developers of the stadium. The lawsuit was filed by attorney M. Baron Stanton.
The news of the lawsuit was first reported by the Post and Courier.
What the lawsuit says
Weddle, through a legal complaint filed on behalf of his Ballpark, LLC, says Columbia let his firm spend more than $2 million and more than 2,000 hours preparing the old Capital City Stadium site for his project before the city ended the contract in 2022. That included “extensive” flood mitigation and wetlands work, more of which would have been done as part of the project.
The complaint says city leaders led him to believe a new deal was still possible after the contract was severed in 2022, but that the city operated in “continued darkness” and favored “interfering parties,” steering the property toward a different bidder through what the lawsuit calls a last-minute “sham” process.
According to the complaint:
- Weddle’s firm spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours improving the site, including extensive flood mitigation work.
- The complaint says the City delayed and failed to cooperate before the 2022 closing, and that those delays pushed the deal into a period of rising interest rates, which caused Weddle’s capital partner Gilbane to hold off on funding and contributed to the contract ending.
- Weddle began working toward a new deal with the city shortly after the city ended the initial contract in 2022, the complaint says.
- Weddle was still in negotiations with the city in August 2024 and expected to be finalizing a new contract soon after, the complaint says.
- Then, the city “suddenly and inexplicably” shifted to a public bidding process called a Request for Proposals, according to the complaint.
- The City told Weddle in mid‑August 2024 that the stadium property would now be decided through the RFP because “others” were interested, the complaint says.
- Then, the city “slow-walked” issuing the RFP until October, and that the process “became virtually secretive,” according to the complaint.
- The complaint says the city issuing that RFP was “in hindsight … to stop the imminent draft of the contract with [Ballpark LLC] after years of ‘working together.’”
- The complaint says the way the city ran the RFP process was not fair, and that the City broke rules about having contact with bidders and sharing Ballpark LLC’s ‘confidential information.”
- The complaint says parties with Providence Group and Trinity Partners interfered with Ballpark’s contract.
- The complaint says that Trinity and Providence entities used “inside access” and relationships with city staff to get an unfair advantage during the RFP process.
- The complaint specifically names a former city employee who now works for Trinity Partners.
The State has contacted representatives for all parties in the suit, offering an opportunity to comment.
Trinity Partners co-founder Macon Lovelace told The State via email that he learned of the lawsuit over the weekend.
“We have referred it to our attorney and look forward to responding at the appropriate time,” he said.
The lawsuit asks for a jury trial, as well as millions in damages to be paid out by the city, Trinity Partners and the Providence LLCs.
Those damages include repayment for work Weddle’s company says it performed and paid for, plus lost profits it says it expected to earn from buying and redeveloping the property.
It also asks a judge to order Columbia to comply with open meeting rules, and to declare the city’s RPF process for the stadium site invalid.
This story was originally published April 7, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
