The Triple-A Int'l League Charlotte Knights "rocketed from oblivion to the top of the minor league heap in recent years, thanks, in large part," to their new BB&T Ballpark, according to a front-page piece by Erik Spanberg of the CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL. But "honeymoons keep getting shorter" for new ballparks and "sustained success requires much more than moving to a better neighborhood." Even though the Knights’ $54M ballpark is just three years old, Knights COO Dan Rajkowski has "made alterations each off-season." This week, when the team started its new season, $500,000 worth of "team-funded projects had been completed over the winter." The improvements "started with a $200,000 sound system, making good on audio quality sacrificed during the original construction project to satisfy budget demands." Before the ballpark opened, the Knights "projected annual attendance of 600,000." To date, they have "eclipsed that number each year," with 688,000 in '14, 669,000 the following year and, most recently, 628,000. As "healthy as the Knights are," those figures represent a decline of 8.7% -- a trend Rajkowski "hopes to reverse" in '17 (CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/7 issue).
LOOKING AHEAD: Spanberg in a separate piece noted for two years, designers have been "tossing around ideas and concepts for a six-story office building behind the left-field fence" at the ballpark. But they are "going to have to wait a little longer." The Knights own the ballpark and also have "development rights to a strip of land 90 feet wide and 400 feet long beyond the left-center-field wall." Mecklenburg County "owns the entire 8-acre site" that includes the ballpark and the "property eyed for the office building." Rajkowski said, "We’ve still got consultants looking at different designs." All of the activity around the ballpark should "make it easier for the Knights to develop a project that would include a mix of office tenants with some internal use for the baseball team." Rajkowski "envisions a rooftop viewing area for games and, on the ground floor of the building, a team-backed restaurant as well as concessions areas and restrooms to serve fans with outfield seats." He "expects design and construction to take two years," so it is unlikely a project will be ready before '20 (CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/7 issue).
CHOMP CHOMP: In Hartford, Gosselin, Carlesso & Goode noted the Double-A Eastern League Hartford Yard Goats' Dunkin' Donuts Park, which debuts on Thursday, was "supposed to be the first step in reviving a barren stretch of land envisioned as a link between Hartford's downtown and the north end neighborhoods." However, plans for the development -- with "housing, shops, a hotel and a much-needed grocery store -- have fallen into limbo as the Yard Goats prepare to take the field." Future development was a "crucial factor in the construction of Dunkin' Donuts Park" (HARTFORD COURANT, 4/10). Also in Hartford, Steven Goode notes Dunkin' Donuts Park yesterday was open to corporate and political leaders, who gathered to "celebrate the long anticipated opening" of the $71M publicly financed ballpark. The 6,000-seat ballpark was originally supposed to open in April '16 (HARTFORD COURANT, 4/11).
