When will Columbia’s Capital City Stadium be demolished? Here’s what you need to know
For nearly a century, Capital City Stadium has stood at 301 S. Assembly St. in Columbia. In many ways it’s a relic of an era gone by.
Now it appears a years-long campaign to demolish the ballpark and redevelop the Assembly Street site is inching close to reality.
Columbia City Council recently approved — for the 15th time — an extension on a contract to sell the property. That gives developer Andrew Weddle, of Weddle Real Estate Investments, three months to finalize the deal. Weddle’s group is buying the stadium site for $1.65 million.
The developers plan to tear down the stadium and build 310 market-rate apartments on the site. There will also be 20,000 square feet of retail space on the property. Capital City Stadium is about a mile north of Willams-Brice Stadium, in the Olympia-Granby neighborhood.
Capital City Stadium was built in 1927 and a number of minor league teams played there through the years, including the Columbia Mets and the Capital City Bombers. Several Hall of Famers played on the Assembly Street field, including Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson. The last regular tenant of the stadium was the Columbia Blowfish, a summer collegiate squad that moved to Lexington County in 2015.
Efforts to redevelop the stadium site stretch back a decade. There were plans in 2011 to put a Walmart on the property, but those efforts were sidelined after fierce pushback from nearby neighbors. Then there was an attempt to locate a Kroger grocery store on the Assembly Street land, but that deal fell apart in 2017. Throughout those efforts, Georgia development company Bright Meyers had been the group trying to overhaul the property.
In 2019, Bright Meyers conveyed its contract to purchase the land to Weddle, who took over the complex project that, aside from the construction of hundreds of new apartments and ample retail space, will also require extensive flood mitigation on the low-lying stadium site and in nearby neighborhoods, as well as environmental cleanups.
City council members joked about the marathon nature of the would-be sale during a July 20 meeting when they extended the deal for the 15th — and perhaps final — time.
“I’m just curious if this is a Guinness Book of World Records record for extensions on a purchase agreement,” Councilman Daniel Rickenmann quipped. “I’m curious if we win a door prize or anything.”
Mayor Steve Benjamin said extending the deal a little longer was necessary and that he fully supports the redevelopment project, but also jokingly agreed with Rickenmann that the 15 extensions “may indeed be a record.”
Weddle told The State that he is still waiting on one last permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He expects to close on the sale in the next couple months.
He said work would likely begin in the fall, with flood mitigation coming first. He thinks the old stadium will likely be torn down in early 2022. The city has included money in the sale for Historic Columbia to document the history of the stadium. Weddle said construction on the apartments would likely begin in the winter of 2022.
The new apartment-and-retail development will be called The Ballpark. The total cost of the project is expected to be about $70 million.
Weddle said the apartments in the development will be one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. The market-rate apartments will not be expressly for students, though with the site’s proximity to the University of South Carolina — it’s a mile-and-a-half from the old ballpark to the university’s iconic Horseshoe — there will likely be student tenants.
“We imagine we are going to have a group of young professionals, possibly professors, graduate students and married students, that would prefer to live there,” Weddle said.
The developer said he wasn’t yet prepared to say what retail offerings might be in The Ballpark, but said he has been talking to several businesses.
“We have gotten more inquiries about the retail than I ever would have imagined,” Weddle said. “We’ve had everything from restaurants to unique workout facilities and more. ... It’s been a very popular spot.”
Capital City Stadium is in Councilman Will Brennan’s District 3. He said he thinks the project would be beneficial to the South Assembly corridor.
“I believe Andy Weddle has shown vision and a commitment to rolling up his sleeves,” Brennan said. “In this world, it is tough to plug in retail and mixed-use. I think they have a good lead on it. That corridor is definitely growing. It’s on us as a city to keep pushing it and working with them.”
