Mayoral Platform Proposal; Turn Greensboro's WW I Memorial Stadium into a Softball Field with Hotel

As mayor of Greensboro, I would like to advocate for saving WWI Memorial Stadium by converting it into a destination venue.

By converting the baseball field into a smaller little league baseball and softball field, while moving the tennis courts to make room for another field, a hotel and restaurant could fit in between the center field of the memorial ball park and the other.

The money from selling or leasing the land for the hotel and restaurant should cover the costs of fixing up the ballpark, building the other and moving the tennis courts.

As there are very few hotels in the area, which is close to downtown and A&T University, a hotel in an awesome location where Reggie Sanders, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Curt Schilling played, should keep it booked during the week.

Many amateur softball and baseball players and parents from out of town would love to play or watch their kids compete on a famous field.

Baseball and softball leagues could use the facility during the week in coordination with the Carolyn Allen complex, and on weekends, tournaments would fill the hotel and restaurant overlooking the center field of the oldest ballpark in North Carolina on one side, with rooms overlooking the other field on the other, without creating direct competition with the Grasshoppers’ profitability.

A tournament with 16 teams should bring in about 400 players and spectators within a mile of downtown, which will add to the vitality of businesses in the area.

Next thing you know, restaurants and other businesses would start opening up nearby, the farmers market would bring in more business, and home values in the area would rise.

This ballpark, which Robbie Perkins proposed to demolish, has been ignored just as much or more than the War Memorial Auditorium at the Coliseum.

We owe our veterans who gave their lives for our freedom.

Renovating this living monument is the right thing to do, and it would pay for itself.