SALT LAKE CITY — The Ballpark neighborhood of Salt Lake City faces a big question for the future: Will there still be a ballpark?
It's been a location for Salt Lake City baseball for decades. Now the Bees are headed to South Jordan, and the University of Utah baseball team has committed to playing at the ballpark through 2026.
So what’s next?
People who care about the stadium and the neighborhood are making their voices heard, and sharing their views on the plans presented to them.
“I’ve lived in this neighborhood for about six years. I grew up going to the ballpark, to Bees games,” said Katie McKeon, who lives in the Ballpark neighborhood. "It’s been a historical standpoint in the neighborhood for so long, and I think it’s important that we preserve it."
She and others attended a community meeting Monday night geared at giving people a chance to see three possible options for the ballpark.
"It’s important to still have the legacy of the ballpark, but it needs a refresh. It needs some new ideas and more community engagement,” McKeon said.
The first scenario is if the ballpark is preserved and the focus is on sports. The second is an adaptive reuse — using a part of the existing structure but keeping the emphasis on culture, which year round activation. And the third is removing the whole ballpark and keeping nature as the theme. People picked their favorite.
The most popular was option 2: the adaptive reuse model.
"I think it represents a nice compromise for a lot of people,” said Amy J. Hawkins, the chairwoman of the Ballpark Community Council. "We've seen the ballpark structure be so iconic for the entire time we’ve lived in the neighborhood.”
People got to share their feedback on all three ideas with post-it notes: Blue for something they were excited about, and yellow for something they were concerned about.
"The community is listening, they are listening hard, we’ve been showing up for meetings about this for a year and a half now, and I think people are going to keep showing up because we care deeply what happens to this space,” Hawkins said.
The city project team hopes to have final design frameworks by early 2025.
"I’m happy to see what comes out of it, and I think through collaboration and everyone's input, it should be really great,” McKeon said.
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