SALT LAKE CITY — Jack Waters has lived in the Ballpark neighborhood for three years and in Salt Lake City for many before that. He says he's been to more than 150 Salt Lake Bees games.
When he first heard the news of the Salt Lake Bees moving to Daybreak, he was in denial.
"It's like, we're moving the Temple from downtown or putting the Delta Center all the way in Holladay. It just doesn't seem right," Waters said.
For him, the Bees are more than just a sports team — they're another source of social interaction and community connection.
"I love supporting the team, going to the games, having friends over. It's been a staple of this particular neighborhood for over 100 years," Waters said.
Baseball nights will soon look different for Waters and the entire Ballpark community. Come the 2025 season, there will be no more opening day cheers, smells, or plays in Salt Lake City.
"Just to know that the celebration as we've known it will no longer be happening in the neighborhood in two years is heartbreaking," said Ballpark Community Council Chairwoman Amy Hawkins.
Hawkins and other community members are also concerned about what this could mean for neighborhood safety and the Ballpark Station Area Plan.
"I think those loud crowds helped keep the crime away a little bit as long as those games were going on," said Rachel Schaefer, who lives a few blocks away from Smith's Ballpark.
Hawkins believes having a large police presence during games helped with public safety, something Salt Lake City has said they are committed to. She also says she and others have been working on the Station Area Plan since 2020 as a committed group of residents and business owners. Now, she says it will be hard for the plan to ignore the fact the Bees are leaving.
"We constantly were planning around this being the jewel, the heart of the neighborhood. It feels a little odd to say we're going to go forward with the station area plan and just ignore that the heart of the neighborhood will be leaving," Hawkins said.
Waters believes the Bees leaving seems more about profits than people.
"It seems like ... moving the Bees is treating this neighborhood as if it's on a spreadsheet rather than actual people and actual lives and desires and hobbies," he said.
READ: $30K in prizes offered for input on what to do next with Smith's Ballpark
Hawkins says she is trying to remain optimistic about what will come next, but she has been disappointed by past developments.
"There's been other uses that have come into the neighborhood in the past few years that we've been told to be positive about that have not been great for the neighborhood," s saihed.
The Ballpark community can't imagine Smith's Ballpark not being near 1300 S. West Temple, but they all hope what comes next on the 13.5 acres that it sits on can have the same or greater impact.
"I wonder what we're going to rename the neighborhood... I hope it can be just as great, but we've been hurt by hoping before," Hawkins said.
Like many others, Waters is worried about what the land could turn into.
"I would hate to see this stadium that former Mayor DeeDee Corradini did such a good job and trying to revitalize turn into some high-rise apartment to just stuff the pocketbooks of rich people," he said.
