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Lake Olmstead Stadium is located in one of the most picturesque settings in the Minors.

Birmingham is bringing pro baseball back to the downtown area. Regions Field will be a beauty, and should be completed in time for the beginning of the 2013 season. (courtesy of HKS).

COLUMBIA   The capital city of South Carolina had an affiliated Minor League team for years, but when their dilapidated old park just didn't measure up any more, the allure of a new park in Greenville, SC drew the South Atlantic League team upstate. Columbia's college baseball program, the University of South Carolina, jumped to national prominence, and a lot of energy went into improving their facilities, while none went into a new park for a pro-baseball team. After a couple of aborted attempts to finance the construction of a new pro park, that may be about to change. Hughes Development Corp. has acquired the 165-acre site of the former South Carolina State Hospital near downtown Columbia, and they feel a pro ballpark would make a great centerpiece for the kind of mixed-use commercial project they want to build. And this encouraging quote from Columbia's current Mayor Steve Benjamin: “I believe, in order to be a great American city, you’ve got to have baseball.” If the park can become a reality, the city hopes to lure a Carolina League franchise or another SAL team to town to play in it.

ESCONDIDO   This city is a northern suburb of San Diego, and the owner of the Padres wanted desperately for the club's Triple-A team to play there. Unfortunately, when the State of California legislature voted to eliminate the funding of all redevelopment agencies, that pretty much killed any hope that a new $50-million stadium would be constructed for the team. Escondido's City Council originally liked the idea, and suggested a site that is just north of a major transit hub for the community. The City went so far as to create renderings to show what the park would look like (below right), and to purchase two parcels that would be needed for the ballpark and parking (below left). While waiting for the situation in Escondido to stabilize, this PCL franchise is playing in Tucson's Kino Stadium, following a decade-long run as the Portland Beavers.

HAGERSTOWN   Municipal Stadium in Hagerstown, MD is certainly one of the lesser facilities in Class A baseball. The Suns of the South Atlantic League have been working on obtaining a new facility since the 1990s. When prospects looked bleak, the City of Winchester, VA came calling to entice the team to move to a to-be-built facility in Winchester, but no solid financing package could be put together. The next move was by Washington County and the City of Hagerstown, as each pledged $400,000 a year to pay the debt service for the construction of a $30-million new ballpark in downtown Hagerstown, at the corner of East Baltimore Street and Summit Avenue. Now, if the team can come up with its part of the cost (at least $300,000 per year) and the State of Maryland will fund the rest, the Suns could be playing in a new park by mid-2014 or the beginning of 2015 at the latest. Ripken Design conducted the feasibility study for the new park.

HUNTSVILLE   The mayor of Huntsville, AL understands that his city is at risk of losing the Southern League's Stars, who for the past 26 seasons have played at Joe W. Davis Municipal Stadium. Not only is it the oldest (and in our opinion, hands-down the worst) stadium in the league, it also draws by far the fewest fans in all of Class AA baseball. The mayor has proposed a new ballpark that would be closer to downtown. The tricky part, of course, is how to pay for it, and it could very well necessitate the sale of the current stadium. No timetable for a new park has yet been pinned down.

MORGANTOWN   This city in northern West Virginia wants to follow the example of State College, PA. West Virginia University's baseball program needs a new park to accommodate their conference games in the Big 12, because 31-year-old Hawley Field (below left) isn't sufficient. After the college season is over, they'd love for a New York-Penn League team to play its games there ... just like in State College. A developer appears to be willing to build the park as part of a shopping area north of Morgantown, just off of I-79. The likely site (below right) is on a hilltop that would provide a wonderful view of the valley and parts of WVU's campus. The earliest this could come to fruition is 2014.

NASHVILLE   An idea with tremendous potential fell completely apart in 2007, but there is hope of it making a comeback. After seeing new ballparks appear in Memphis, Jackson, Chattanooga and near Knoxville, the other major city in Tennessee wanted a new facility, too. On Feb. 7, 2006, Nashville's Metro Council took a huge step in making this a reality by approving an ambitious development project on city-owned land at the former site of the Thermal Transfer Plant, along the banks of the Cumberland River near downtown Nashville. The centerpiece was an HOK-designed ballpark, which would have cost $43 million to build. The underlying financial arrangements involved the team borrowing $23 million from a consortium of a dozen Tennessee banks, while the other $20 million would come from a combination of the developer, who would've constructed retail space and condos next to the ballpark, and from tax-increment financing. In addition to providing the land, the city committed $500,000 a year to help with the park's operating costs. The Sounds of the Pacific Coast League had been hoping to move into the 12,500-seat facility in 2007 or 2008, but there were so many delays that the project was pushed back to 2009 ... and then to "never." The Metro government authority in Nashville finally ran out of patience with the team, and when a solid deal to finance and develop the project failed to materialize by a deadline of April 15, 2007, the government pronounced the project dead. That was an enormous shame, because Greer Stadium in "Music City" has seen its better days. I mean, it really, really has seen its better days.  Baseball in Nashville deserves a facility as nice as the stadium for the NFL Titans and the arena for the NHL Predators. Thankfully, Nashville's mayor resurrected talks, floating out three possible sites for a new park in November of 2009. All three are near downtown, and one is the previously discussed Thermal Transfer Plant site, which is pictured below. In the meantime, the Sounds will continue playing in the worst facility in Triple-A baseball.

PORTLAND, OR/VANCOUVER, WA/MILWAUKIE, OR   Novel, bathtub-shaped PGE Stadium had been the home of the PCL's Beavers since Triple-A ball returned to Portland in 2001 -- but it has now undergone a transformation into a big-league soccer venue. The Beavers correctly interpreted that to mean that they needed to find a new home, something that the team has been longing for. After several failed suggestions in various parts of Portland, a fairly solid proposal to build a baseball-only facility in the Lents part of town was discussed. Ellerbe Becket, which had been absent from the ballpark-architecture scene for awhile, created fairly detailed ballpark designs and site plans. Locals, though, were vocal that they wouldn't be venturing into this not-upscale part of the city to go to games, especially at night. Residents in Lents were strongly opposed to the stadium at public hearings, so the plan was pulled all together. The team then explored the possibility of a new ballpark for them in Beaverton, a suburb on the west side of Portland ... but that fell apart, too. After one last attempt to generate interest in a new park next to Portland's basketball arena fell through, the cold reality of having no place to play forced a number of changes. First, the owner of the Padres agreed to acquire the franchise and move it out of Portland. Tucson, recently vacated by the Pacific Coast League, had the perfect venue. Now called Kino Stadium, the venue hosted spring training exhibitions by the Diamondbacks and White Sox as well as the PCL's Tucson Sidewinders. The franchise formerly in Portland is now playing in Tucson while trying (in vain) to gain support in Escondido, CA for a new park. Meanwhile, it is positively ridiculous that a market the size of Portland is without affiliated Minor League ball, and the Yakima Bears of the short-season Northwest League might be looking to fill that void. They announced that they'd like to move to a to-be-built ballpark on the campus of Clark College in the Portland suburb of Vancouver, WA. Had the the governmental bodies agreed, the park could've become a reality in 2013 ... but those bodies did not, thereby killing the ballpark plan for Clark County. Soon thereafter, the Portland suburb of Milwuakie, Oregon became interested in constructing a new park, which could also be for a NWL team -- probably the Bears.

RICHMOND   I can only categorize the situation that led to the departure of the Richmond Braves as a complete breakdown within the city government of Richmond, Virginia. Warned repeatedly by the Atlanta Braves that its Triple-A baseball team needed a better facility than the city's clam-shaped ballpark (called The Diamond), Richmond failed to act. A number of proposals were floated, including constructing a brand-new stadium in various parts of town, but ultimately the discussion kept coming back to the uninspiring location of the current park. From the perspective of an outsider looking in, it seemed to me the city made the ballpark an extremely low priority, and the brass of the team in Atlanta must've run out of patience -- in much the same way as they did with Greenville, SC when they yanked their Double-A team out of South Carolina and into a brand-new stadium in Pearl, Mississippi. Following that template, the Braves announced on January 15, 2008 that their Triple-A team would leave Richmond following the 2008 season to move to a to-be-built park in Gwinnett County, just northeast of Atlanta. This left the attractive Richmond market open for another pro team, but not another Triple-A franchise. Double-A franchises then pushed to take over that territory -- and the one selected was the team formerly known as the Connecticut Defenders. The Eastern League franchise changed their name to the (really) Flying Squirrels and moved into the The Diamond in 2010, all the while continuing the drumbeat for a new park. After talk that this might happen out in Richmond's suburbs, discussions again began to focus on parcels of land adjacent to The Diamond. It appears that if a new park is constructed there, the soonest the Flying Squirrels would move into it is probably 2015, according to recent news reports.

SCRANTON/WILKES-BARRE   PNC Field, the home of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees of the International League, has been demolished and will be rebuilt at a cost of $40 million. This will necessitate that the team play elsewhere for the entire 2012 season, but when the 2013 season arrives, the aging facility will have been transformed into a showplace.

WILMINGTON   A number of times over the years, we've included Wilmington, NC in our list of places about to build a new park. Many times, plans fell through. Now a new movement is afoot for a downtown development that would include a marina, hotels, restaurants and a ballpark. Local media have reported that the Braves might be interested in locating a Minor League affiliate there. Since the Braves' AAA, AA and low-A teams have permanent homes in fairly new ballparks, one would assume it would be the high-A Carolina League team (currently in Lynchburg) or the Rookie-level Apply League team (now in Danville, VA) that would move to Wilmington, with the former being the more likely scenario, which would then shift the Appy League team to Lynchburg. Wilmington is serious enough about this to hire National Sports Services to manage the project -- after initially indicating Ripken Design would do the work.

WOODBRIDGE   Woodbridge, VA is the home to the Potomac Nationals (formerly Cannons) of the Carolina League.  It's also home to one of my least favorite pro ballparks in the country (see my essay on A Bad Day at the Ballpark), Pfizner Stadium.  Time and time again, we've heard that Prince William County and the team were close to an agreement to built a badly needed new park, and time and time again, a new facility has failed to materialize. In April 2012, yet another plan was announced, where the site for a new facility apparently will be much closer to I-95 than the current park.