Braves AA Affiliate's Planned Move to Columbus Georgia in Jeopardy
The AA affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, the Mississippi Braves, recently announced plans to relocate to Columbus, Georgia for the 2025 season, ending a decade of professional baseball in Pearl, Mississippi.
But recent inaction by the Columbus City Council may have jeopardized the plan.
On Tuesday night, City Manager Isaiah Hughley declined to begin voting on a measure that would have formally hired a construction company to begin the work needed to prepare for the team's arrival, according to Columbus news station WRBL, who was in attendance at the meeting.
The construction work, estimated to cost $50M, is for renovations to historic Golden Park, which was built in 1926 and last hosted a MLB-affiliated team in 2008. MLB has issued updated facility standards since that time, requiring significant (but unspecified) modifications to be made to player and staff amenities, playing surfaces, and support facilities at Golden Park before it would be approved to host affiliated baseball games.
The work is set to be funded through a bond issuance, but some of the reluctance to vote for hiring contractor Brasfield & Gorrie from various city council members is because that funding has not yet been secured.
Councilor Judy Thomas of District 9 was quoted as clarifying that her opposition is "not against the baseball project,” but rather “against spending this money before we have it in hand.”
The deadline to have the renovation work completed, per the city's original Request for Proposal and the public timelines, is Opening Day of 2025. Diamond Baseball Holdings, the owner of the team who gave comment to WRBL for the story, indicated that they did not believe the council's decision on Tuesday would "have any impact on the relocation of the team."
But if the ballpark isn't complete by that date, it's not known what the team would do in the meantime - the lease for using Pearl's Trustmark Park will expire after the 2024 season and it's unknown whether the city of Pearl would be open to a temporary extension of the leasing agreement. A phone message for comment with the mayor's office in Pearl was not returned.
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