Let’s rethink plans for Golden Park

OK, while we are sitting here on pause, let’s rethink this. I mean totally and completely rethink it.

What we are talking about is Columbus’ Golden Park, a minor league baseball facility since the early 1950s. It is a place where they have been playing baseball since the 1920s.

Two decades ago we rethought it and ended up with a nice little temporary softball stadium and the world at our doorstep. That was nice, but it was a fleeting affair.

The Olympics put the city on the map and helped destroy a community-wide inferiority complex, but Columbus never became the “Softball Capital of the World.” Instead, Golden Park went back to baseball and a slow and painful march to irrelevance. Eventually that death spiral led the very city that owns it to ask Columbus Council to declare it surplus property and sell it.

That idea is on hold because apparently when the state of Georgia gave the “commons” land to the city about 90 years ago there was a clause that required for it to be used for recreational purposes. Dr. Virginia Causey, a semi-retired Columbus State University history professor, pointed it out hours before Columbus Council was set to act.

Now, Causey is leading an effort to save the park for public use.

For what it’s worth, here’s my idea: Turn the dang thing into an amphitheater and outdoor performance venue, then bring in six to eight quality shows a year.

This is a long way from a cornfield in Iowa, but if you build it, they will come. And it is not like you’ve got to build a lot. The footprint for an amphitheater is there.

People go to Chastain Park in Atlanta. They go to “The Fred” in Peachtree City. They even go to Phenix City. And, they would come to Golden Park.

I would be willing to bet a paycheck that performers who would draw sell-out crowds would book into that venue.

Look at how many people go to the Phenix City Amphitheater when they bring in a rising star or dust off some old rocker three decades removed from the limelight. Imagine what you could do with Golden Park and more than twice the capacity of the Phenix City Amphitheater. There’s even ample parking. You would have the ability to sell table seating and valuable corporate sponsorships. Lexus sponsors the summer concert series in Peachtree City. I bet you could find a corporate sponsor for a summer concert series here.

It sounds crazy, but it isn’t. Golden Park is done as a baseball stadium of any consequence. If it can be done at all, it is going to take miles of political red tape to get where you put a “For Sale” sign in front of it. Then, you might — and this is a mighty big might — get $4 million for it. That won’t do much in the grand scheme of the city budget.

My guess is it would take between $1 million and $1.5 million to get the park ready as a music and event venue. Obviously, you have to build a stage. You are going to want to do that right — and it likely won’t be cheap. You may have to make some seat modifications for sight lines. You’ve got the old baseball clubhouse in right field that would make a nice dressing room.

This is a no-brainer, folks.

It saves Golden Park in a meaningful and productive way. It basically gives downtown Columbus another performance venue. Last month when Elton John played the Columbus Civic Center, many people ate downtown and walked Broadway to the show. An amphitheater would bring more of that.

People will once again fill the place up on a semi-regular basis. You can use it for community events, corporate events, runs and races.

There are a lot of possibilities here.

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Let’s rethink plans for Golden Park."