Play ball? Return of Lowell Spinners a possibility

Apr. 13—Over the past week fans across the country have flocked to their local pro ballpark, packing the stands for Opening Day to celebrate baseball's return.

But not at Lowell's LeLacheur Park, which outside of some college games has sat empty for three years and counting.

The former home of the Lowell Spinners has become something of a time capsule. The 24-year-old stadium, which previously hosted the Boston Red Sox short-season Single-A affiliate, remains covered in Red Sox and Spinners signage, leftovers from the fall of 2019.

The club shut down in 2020 due to the one-two punch of the pandemic and the dissolution of the old short-season New York-Penn League as part of minor league baseball's restructuring. Since then, the park's only regular tenant has been the UMass Lowell baseball team.

Yet even as time stretches on, hope remains that professional baseball might one day return.

Since the Spinners shut down, city, state and Red Sox club officials have consistently expressed their desire to bring professional baseball back to Lowell.

Negotiations between the various stakeholders concerning the park's future have been ongoing for two years, and Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy recently told The Eagle-Tribune that the club remains open to the possibility of bringing an affiliate back to Lowell in the future.

"We've had conversations with the state of Massachusetts and the city of Lowell on and off for a couple of years," Kennedy said during an interview in the Yankee Stadium visitors dugout prior to Friday's season opener. "We don't have any specific plans to come back there with an affiliated team right now but we never rule anything out in the future."

University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan has also expressed support for bringing a Red Sox affiliate to Lowell, saying it would help with the university's plans to develop the surrounding East Campus area, and Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Westford, said she's grateful for the efforts each stakeholder has put in to help bring the return of professional baseball closer to reality.

"We've made strong progress over the past few months thanks to these stakeholders who are stepping up to the plate to keep Red Sox-affiliated baseball here in the Merrimack Valley," Trahan said in a statement. "Fans across the region are grateful for the commitment from the Sox to maintain the storied history of minor league baseball in Lowell, and our work to make that a reality continues."

Extensive renovations needed

The chief obstacle holding up a deal is the condition of LeLacheur Park itself. The ballpark has fallen into a state of disrepair since the Spinners left, and in order for any professional affiliate to return to Lowell, significant renovations will be needed.

"Part of Major League Baseball's strategy the last couple of years has been to make sure every minor league affiliate is up to a certain code, a certain standard for professional affiliation," Kennedy said. "Lowell would need improvements to the ballpark for it to happen."

Those improvements won't come cheap.

During an interview with WCAP 980 on Tuesday morning, Meehan spoke at length about the LeLacheur Park situation and said it would cost $40 million to bring the park up to professional standard. Even just fixing the park to a degree where it would be suitable for general use would cost $6-7 million, and if action isn't taken soon that number could potentially double by this time next year.

"I toured it recently and it's in far worse shape than even I thought," Meehan said on the Merrimack Valley Radio in the Morning show. "No way that stadium could be ready by 2023. That stadium is in tough, tough shape."

Speaking to The Eagle-Tribune in a follow-up interview, Meehan said the baseline $6-7 million work would include repairing the concourse and stands, and that the $40 million overhaul would entail a complete restoration of the park, including new seats, a new scoreboard, two home clubhouses to accommodate both the Red Sox affiliate and the UMass Lowell team, and numerous other improvements.

For the city, which currently owns LeLacheur Park, a $40 million price tag would be a non-starter and even the $6-7 million needed to fix up the park would be a big ask. The city already has a number of other pressing infrastructure needs and is dealing with spiraling costs stemming from the ongoing Lowell High School renovations, which are currently more than $38 million over budget.

Who will pay for what portion of the needed renovations remains the subject of ongoing discussion. The Lowell City Council has twice met in executive session since Christmas to "consider and discuss ongoing negotiations relative to LeLacheur Baseball Stadium," and the most recent discussions took place last Tuesday night.

While Meehan said the university is happy with the ballpark's current ownership arrangement, he said they are willing to be a partner within reason and he believes the two sides can work something out. A deal to renovate the ballpark would coincide neatly with the university's plans to redevelop its East Campus, which were announced in January and would see the area surrounding the park transformed into a new mixed-use district within the next few years.

"I'm interested in making sure that ballpark looks good, the East Campus is the gateway to the university and we can't afford as a university for that ballpark to deteriorate any more," Meehan said. "We have a vested interest so if it means the university has to put up money we're certainly open to doing that."

Logistical challenges to clear

Even if a deal can be reached to pay for the necessary ballpark improvements, there would still be significant logistical hurdles to clear before any minor league affiliate could be brought back to Lowell.

Previously the Spinners were a short-season club whose schedule began in mid-June and ran until early-September. That arrangement worked in large part because it fit into UMass Lowell's summer break, but any prospective affiliate going forward would be a full-season club whose season begins in April.

That would present a number of issues. Among them, how would the pro affiliate and UMass Lowell's baseball team coexist during the two months their schedules overlap? and how would the university handle parking for games while students are still on campus?

Meehan acknowledged that those would be concerns, but he believes adjustments could be made for parking and that the two teams' schedules could be worked out in such a way that between home-road dates and day-night start times both could have full use of the facility.

"It presents some challenges, but the fact that there are more dates in a full Class-A affiliate as opposed to the New York-Penn League, I view as a plus for the project," Meehan said. "It's a plus for our economic development project, we're trying to develop 10 acres around the arena and the ballpark, and having that many people coming in that many dates makes it more likely to attract private investors."

There would be challenges to iron out on the Red Sox side too.

Under minor league baseball's current structure, all clubs can have four full-season affiliates, meaning that if the Red Sox wanted to put a team in Lowell they would have to relocate one of their existing teams.

The Red Sox just recently relocated their Triple-A club from Pawtucket to Worcester and opened the brand new Polar Park just last year, so they aren't going anywhere. The Double-A Portland Sea Dogs are well entrenched and a move out of Maine would be highly unpopular, and the High-A Greenville Drive are one of the nation's most profitable minor league affiliates and were honored by Baseball America as the sport's top Single-A franchise in 2020.

That leaves the Low-A Salem Red Sox in Virginia as the only viable option for relocation, but even if a move were made other issues would have to be addressed. Among the big ones, the closest Low-A club to Lowell is more than 440 miles away in Salisbury, Maryland, so the only sensible way to make the geography work would be to bump Greenville down to Low-A and have Lowell become a High-A club. In that scenario Lowell could join the other surviving former New York-Penn League clubs in the new High-A South Atlantic League North, but even those clubs are still at least 240 miles away.

Regardless, if there's a will there's a way, and the parties involved wouldn't still be talking after all this time if the issues couldn't be worked out. The biggest challenge remains money, and Meehan suggested that the planned development around UMass Lowell's East Campus could hold the key to bridging the gaps that remain.

"If we could get a good economic development project to generate revenue, we could use that revenue to upgrade the ballpark, and if we could generate $30 million and put it into the ballpark, then I think we could attract the Red Sox," Meehan said. "They're not interested in going anywhere other than Salem or Lowell, so I think we could get the Red Sox to come here."

"I think it's good for the Merrimack Valley and it's good for the university if we can do it, so we're going to work as hard as we can," he added later. "We have a pretty good idea of what the need would be in terms of facilities, we just have to find a way to make it happen."

And if they build it, will they come?

"We're not closing the door, we're blessed with some great affiliates so it's a good problem to have that there are different municipalities that want Red Sox affiliates," Kennedy said. "When we were in Lowell it was very special, we had a great connection to that community, so we would never close the door."