Columbia’s Capital City Stadium has been an eyesore for years. Residents hope to save it

The old Capital City Stadium on Assembly Street in Columbia’s Olympia neighborhood has been empty for years.

Almost two decades ago, the minor league team Capital City Bombers played its last game there. A decade later, The Columbia Blowfish, a summer collegiate team in the Coastal Plain League, played the stadium out with one more game.

But in the decade since, the empty stadium, originally built in 1927, has become a jungle. Vines climb up the concrete stands, trees are growing on the field. And while thousands of people drive past the once-vibrant stadium each day, it has remained an eyesore.

But now, Columbia natives and baseball lovers have mobilized to save the stadium. Nearly 1,000 people have joined a Facebook group dedicated to reviving the stadium — thanks to an idea from Columbia local Chris Dorsey.

“I think … we can get that stadium (to) where it’s got life to it, and there’s people moving in it, and there’s people playing ball, playing lacrosse, playing different sports every day,” Dorsey said.

Dorsey, who co-owns the Big Red Box dumpster company in the Midlands and also leads the American Legion baseball team Post Richland 215 , said the idea came to him at first out of frustration.

It was expensive to find fields for his American Legion team, which has roughly 100 youth members, to play on. His wife is a born and bred Olympia-native, and suggested he look into what’s happening at Capital City Stadium.

For Dorsey, trying to save the stadium is a full-circle moment. He and his brother used to chase foul balls at Columbia Mets games. And then he was signed to play minor league baseball himself at a tryout at Capital City Stadium.

Dorsey said he expects rehabbing the field and parking lot will cost at least $2 million, and he’s hoping to fundraise, apply for grants and get some community support to start work on the process.

The stadium is owned by the city of Columbia, which has sought developers for the site for years, but none of the planned projects have come to fruition.

Most recently, the firm Weddle Real Estate Investments inked a deal with the city in 2019 to buy the property for $1.6 million. They planned to build a 310-unit apartment complex along with 20,000 square feet of retail space, but that project never materialized.

The city plans to use a portion of the stadium property to rebuild the Columbia-Richland Fire Department’s Olympia fire station, but the rest of the property is up for grabs, Mayor Daniel Rickenmann recently told The State. Prior to Dorsey announcing a desire to save the stadium, Rickenmann told The State the city was considering putting the property back on the market.

Dorsey believes he has enough community support to keep the stadium as-is, with a few needed upgrades.

“It took on a life of its own,” after he made the Facebook group, Dorsey said. “I think I could get an army of 200 people down there next Saturday” to help with renovations.

Of course, the work will take longer to fund than that, but Dorsey said he knows he has a lot of community interest in reviving the park. He stressed that the site would not be intended for minor league baseball teams, as it once was.

He doesn’t want to compete with Segra Park. Instead, it would be a community park available for use not just by his American Legion team, but also by other local baseball clubs, even the one at the University of South Carolina.

Supporters of the plan have been sharing their memories about the venue in the Save Capital City Stadium Facebook group. Dorsey is gathering letters of support in that group, and plans to begin fundraising soon. He also hopes to get volunteers to help with some of the manual labor that will be required to repair the facade of the stadium.

“Just like anything in business, you’ve got to go — dream, plan, execute,” Dorsey said.