Renovations at softball complex on track for completion by summer international tournament

Renovations at the South Commons Softball Complex in Columbus are on schedule, with the facility expected to be ready for an international softball tournament scheduled to begin July 1.

“The construction team, we have great faith in them,“ Merri Sherman, executive director of the Columbus Georgia Sports Council, said. “They’ve been working through weekends with the good weather that we’ve had on some of the weekends recently, and so we’re on schedule to have this completed in time for International Cup.”

Sherman said during a tour earlier this week workers started with the stadium, the stadium field, and fields six and eight.

Demolition has started and the old lights have been converted to newer, LED lighting. Painting has also started and some bleachers are already re-installed. The fiber has been installed to power ESPN for the International Cup, slated for July 1-7.

Sherman said Team USA, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, China and Chinese-Taipei are expected to in the city as they prepare for the 2020 Olympic Games.

She said the current renovations have played an instrumental role is convincing USA Softball to award the tournament to Columbus.

“USA Softball came here in the Spring of 2018 and saw some of the things that needed to be addressed before they would agree to bring International Cup here this summer,” Sherman said. “. . . we worked with the city, and worked with the renovations team to see what we could do in the amount of time that we had to get it done in time for the event.”

Sherman said the renovations will also help Columbus secure additional events and maintain current events they currently host at South Commons.

“We are so excited about the renovations here and the opportunity it will give to bring new people into Columbus,” she said. “It will be a stadium that is fresh and it will give the teams an exciting experience when they come here to play.”

Sherman said they still need financial support for the project. “The city was a great help in contributing over $3 million for this project and so we appreciate their support very much to get us going, but we still are in need of financial support,” she said. Sherman said they have raised a little more than $1.3 million of their $2.6 million fundraising goal.

This story was originally published March 29, 2019 at 12:00 AM.