Columbus leaders OK Minor League Baseball venture, seek bonds for Golden Park upgrade

Columbus Council Thursday took another step toward trying to bring Minor League Baseball back to the historic Golden Park stadium downtown.

Councilors voted unanimously to explore financing for a $50 million bond issue to upgrade the ball park to league standards, the first move toward inking a deal with a Minor League team, likely a Double-A team from the Southern League.

The city has been in negotiations with Diamond Baseball Holdings, though Mayor Skip Henderson still declined to disclose who’s backing the project after council held a private meeting for almost two hours to discuss it Thursday morning, before the public vote.

“The name has been put out, but they’ve asked us not to disclose on a regular basis the partnership,” he told reporters afterward.

District 5 Councilor Charmaine Crabb specified before the vote that she did not want the bond issue financed by any increase in taxes, and District 2 Councilor Glenn Davis, once a professional baseball player to the Houston Astros, emphasized that seeking financing for the bonds does not mean they’ll be issued.

That will require council to take another vote, to approve the financing terms, and if that passes, council later will vote on the terms of a lease agreement for the ball park, he noted.

Speaking with reporters afterward, Davis likened it to buying a house: First you have to get the financing, and then you have to settle on the contract.

City leaders expect to learn more in January. Henderson said that if the deal goes through, the proponents want the ball field ready for play when the season opens in spring 2025.

He said after the meeting that the $50 million in taxpayer funds are to be spent only on upgrading the ball park, but that project is expected to spur up to $350 million in private investment in adjacent development between the field and the city’s football stadium to the south.

He envisions retail and residential development there, with a hotel overlooking the outfield, restaurants and other amenities.

The mayor repeatedly has said that landing a Minor League team is only a catalyst for the attendant development he expects to follow.

“Baseball to me is not in the center ring,” he said. “The center ring is the development that’s going to change the lives of people in south Columbus; it’s going to increase revenues; it’s going to benefit the entire community.”

Built in the 1920s, Golden Park over the decades has hosted many Minor League teams, but all have pulled out when attendance dropped.

What happens if the team that comes here later leaves?

“We’ve seen that happen in the past,” he acknowledged. But the city still would benefit from the adjacent development and renovated ball park, he said.

“If they are here just five, six or seven years, I think we’ve gotten what we need to get from them, because we will have that revenue generator, which is a complete, multi-use area of our community that has never been able to achieve any real improvement.”

Among the upgrades needed at Golden Park are dugout improvements, more locker rooms, including some for female umpires, press box expansion, team offices, more seating, and luxury suites, he said.

“This group is really focused on the fan experience,” he said.

Comparable ball field development can be found in Greenville, S.C.; Spartanburg, S.C.; and Birmingham, Ala., he said.

Councilors were briefed on the project during a closed session at their Dec. 12 meeting. That briefing and Thursday’s session were held privately under an open-meetings law exception for handling real estate.

Here are the people council met with councilors privately Thursday:

• Jerald Mitchell, president, Columbus Chamber of Commerce

• Pace Halter, president, W.C. Bradley Real Estate.

• Heath Schondelmayer, chair, the Columbus Development Authority.

Halter said W.C. Bradley is not engaged as an investor or builder in the proposal.

“We were just a facilitator,” he said after the meeting. “We had an introduction to the opportunity, and we just presented it to council,”

Halter personally thanked each councilor after the vote. Only District 4 Councilor was absent, because she was ill.

Henderson said Wednesday that studies showed the development could support 3,000 more jobs, but the time to act on the proposal was running out.

“It’s a very short runway,” he said, acknowledging some councilors felt pressured to act fast. “I feel rushed, too.”

How to pay for it

Some councilors contacted Wednesday questioned the timing and the funding mechanism, asking whether council would have to raise property taxes to back the bonds. Council recently cut the property tax millage rate after complaints about skyrocketing tax assessments.

Henderson said councilors will be given a range of options to finance the bonds.

“We’re not going to increase taxes unless absolutely necessary,” said citywide council representative Judy Thomas.

She recalled that council just cut the property tax rate, and abruptly rescinding that could look like they made a mistake: “We would have to say, ‘Oops!’”

The city would continue to own the land, and lease it out, she said, and she would not favor any nominal leasing agreement. “If we have to lease that land, it’s going to be market value,” she said.

Crabb, who represents midtown, had doubts about the proposal, in light of Golden Park’s history in the Minor League.

“We’ve had baseball several times, and we don’t go and watch it, and it goes away,” she said.

The city needs to renovate its other recreational facilities that residents are using now, before it embarks on this endeavor, she said.

“We don’t even take care of what we have,” she said.

Attracting tourists does not supersede serving the people who live here, she said. “Let’s take care of the citizens before we start taking care of visitors.”

She was concerned about Columbus taxpayers footing the bill for business interests that aren’t local.

“We put $50 million in it, and they don’t put in a dime, and they don’t live here,” she said. “That’s what they’re shoving down our throats.”

The voters should be asked whether they want to pay for this development, she said: “If we want to do this, let’s have a referendum.”

Elections director Nancy Boren said the deadline to get a referendum on the ballot for Georgia’s March 2024 presidential preference primary has passed. The next deadline, to get a measure on the May 21 state primary ballot, is Feb. 13, she said.

Golden Park and Minor League teams

City leaders have been talking about redevelopment around the ball field since May, when council unanimously approved a resolution endorsing Henderson’s effort to land a team through negotiations with Diamond Baseball Holdings.

Among the teams Diamond Holdings owns and operates are the Rome, Georgia Braves; the Pearl, Mississippi Braves; the Midland, Texas Rockhounds; the San Jose, California Giants; and the Wichita, Kansas, Wind Surge.

Councilors first discussed the idea in February, during another closed-door session, before asking state legislators to pass a bill removing restrictive covenants that reserved the South Commons property strictly for a public, recreational uses. That legislation later passed the Georgia General Assembly, opening other options for the land.

Columbus last had a Minor League Baseball team in 2008. The five-acre ballpark at 100 Fourth St. now is home to the Columbus Chatt-a-Hoots, who are in the Sunbelt Baseball League that offers a summer season for college athletes hoping to play professionally.

Henderson said Thursday that the Chatt-A-Hoots will have to leave, if Columbus gets a Minor League team, but the city would compensate the team of any improvements it made to the stadium.

The city’s Jonathan Hatcher Skateboard Park, which is just outside the stadium, likely will be affected, but no decision on moving it has been made.

The swath of land known as the South Commons includes around 170 acres, encompassing the city’s softball complex, where teams practiced for the 1996 Olympic Games held in Golden Park, the A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium, the Columbus Civic Center and the city ice rink.

The commons originated as vacant land set aside for public use when Georgia established Columbus as a planned city in 1827 and 1828.

Golden Park was named for T.E. Golden of Golden’s Foundry, who chaired the city’s recreation board.

Here are some of the teams that have been based there over the years:

• The Columbus Foxes, named for former Atlanta player Jim Fox, the team manager, played at Golden Park 1926-1932.

• The Columbus Red Birds, affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals, played there 1936-1955.

• The Columbus Yankees, affiliated with the New York Yankees, 1964-1966.

• The Columbus Astros, affiliated with the Houston Astros, 1970-1988; renamed the Mudcats 1989-1990.

• The Columbus RedStixx, affiliated with the Cleveland Indians, 1991-2002.

• The South Georgia Waves, associated with the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2003.

• The Columbus Catfish, associated with the Dodgers, 2004-2006; then with the Tampa Bay Rays, 2007-2008.