The Staten Island Yankees (Short Season A; NY-Penn League) are considering potential upgrades to Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, including the incorporation of space that could host non-gameday events.
Richmond County Bank Ballpark could be modernized and made more versatile as part of future upgrades being explored by team officials. Consideration of the potential changes is very much in the early stages, but one idea is to renovate part of the ballpark to create a space that is designed to accommodate non-gameday events.
As noted, that idea and some of the others reportedly being explored–including an enhanced right field entrance, and a switch to artificial turf (intended to make the field more usable for additional events)–are very much in the early stages of consideration. Therefore it remains to be seen how possible future upgrades would take shape, but they could ultimately modernize the ballpark while ultimately making it more flexible in terms of the type of events it could accommodate. More from the Staten Island Advance:
Although plans for renovations for the ballpark are in the early stages, William Smith, president/operating partner of Nostalgic Partners LLC, which manages the ballpark, said he is hoping to create spaces for non-game events.
“We’ve proposed knocking down a couple of sections of seats in the right field area to put in more of a group area so we can maybe use that as flex space or for non-game day events. …or maybe we could make a 400-person banquet room on the waterfront that we could use year-round,” he explained.
Even though the Staten Island Yankees got an attendance bump this past season with rebranding to the Pizza Rats for select games, there’s still a desire to fill the stadium for non-game events, said Smith.
“I’ve cited a couple of things that need to be updated and fixing,” he said. “We are looking to upgrade a couple of areas. I don’t want to just change it seat for seat. …The life of a seating bowl of a minor league stadium is supposed to be about 15 years, we’ve done 18.”
Richmond County Bank Ballpark originally opened in 2001.