Amidst the various news coming out of Tuesday's state of the economy breakfast downtown was a brief update on Minor League Baseball's interest in the area surrounding the old Durham Athletic Park. From Monica Chen's coverage in today's Herald-Sun:
Pat O'Connor, vice president of Minor League Baseball Inc., spoke of plans for old Durham Athletic Park, which recently got the green light from the city for a $5 million renovation.
Baseball officials are looking at buildings for a "fan-experience" museum, in which there could be virtual training and batting cages.
"Why Durham? Well, why not Durham?" asked O'Connor.
The Durham Bulls were a charter member of Minor League Baseball, then known as the National Association, which was headquartered in Durham from the mid-1930s to 1946, O'Connor said.
The company hopes to have a grand opening by 2010. O'Connor could not say how much more money is needed for the project this point. "The rest of it is still a moving target," he said.
What's new here? The grand-opening date certainly is one point of interest; during this spring and summer's discussions about design and funding for the DAP renovations, MiLB's creation of a museum and attraction often hinged around a feasibility and fund-raising study the organization was undergoing with the help of an outside consultant.
It's unclear if this update points to positive news in this department, but it's good to hear that the idea is at least continuing to move forward. Ray Gronberg also notes that Mayor Bell and Patrick Baker attended Major League Baseball's winter meeting in Nashville last week to try to drum up support for a move of some of MiLB's operations, potentially including their headquarters, to the Bull City.
Bell actually didn't go to Nashville, though Baker and Kalkhof did. That was my error. I was aware the mayor had been invited but unaware that he had other things scheduled.
Posted by: Ray Gronberg | December 12, 2007 at 03:25 PM
Gotcha, Ray -- I deleted the Bell mention on the post.
Posted by: | December 13, 2007 at 08:19 PM