Columbus OKs private development around Golden Park stadium. What businesses could come?

With little public discussion, Columbus’ city and Georgia state leaders this year quietly removed a covenant that blocked private development in the South Commons area around the Golden Park baseball stadium.

The move comes seven years after the city considered selling Golden Park, which in 2016 hosted no baseball team and cost the Columbus Consolidated Government an estimated $83,000 a year in maintenance and utilities, to keep it open to rent for special events.

That proposed sale was dropped when city leaders learned of the covenant the state of Georgia placed on the South Commons when it gave the land to the city in 1928.

That restriction enshrined in state law said the property “shall be kept open and used only for the purpose of a public park and playground and devoted to such amusement and pleasure as ... the City of Columbus may designate.”

The restriction also mandated that the City of Columbus “shall have no power or authority to convey any part or portion of said real property without the assent of two-thirds of the qualified voters of said city at a special election to be held for that purpose.”

With no public discussion, council moved to eliminate that restriction during a late-night meeting on Feb. 28, a session that primarily focused on the controversy over then-police chief Freddie Blackmon.

That evening, councilors talked about Golden Park during a closed-door session to discuss real estate, which is an exception to the state open meetings law, allowing private meetings involving “negotiations to purchase, dispose of or lease property.”

Council then voted on a resolution asking state legislators to remove the covenant, with the resolution presented as a last-minute “add-on” to the city manager’s agenda, so it was not on the council agenda publicized before the meeting.

The vote was 9 to 1 in favor, with only former Houston Astros baseball player Glenn Davis, the District 2 councilor, voting against it.

Davis this week said he voted no because the proposal included no specific plan for the property.

“There was too much mystery, with a lack of understanding as to what could be done in that area,” he said, adding that he needed more clarity before he could support that.

Council’s resolution asked that rescinding the Golden Park restrictions be added to a so-called “housecleaning bill” that involved transferring other Georgia properties around the state to local governments. That legislation, House Resolution 157, passed the General Assembly during this year’s session, and Gov. Brian Kemp signed it on May 1, freeing the city to pursue a redevelopment plan for that portion of the South Commons.

Mayor Skip Henderson said council rushed the resolution through in February because it had to move quickly to be included in the state legislation that by then was making its way through the general assembly.

“We actually knew that there was a housecleaning bill that was already in the senate, and so when we heard about that, we thought, ‘Well, let’s just see if we can get this attached to it,’” he said.

The city does not intend to sell Golden Park, and does not yet have a plan for the property, he said, but hopes new amenities there will spur more development down the road.

“I think there are some ideas being floated around, but I don’t think there’s any commitment to a concept,” he said. “We’re still trying to evaluate what is the best way to make that pivot down into Victory Drive and down along South Lumpkin Road into south Columbus.”

The mayor on Monday asked councilors to approve a resolution at this week’s meeting to endorse bringing a Minor League Baseball team back to Golden Park, through negotiations with the company Diamond Baseball Holdings. Council voted unanimously to approve that resolution Tuesday evening.

Where is South Commons land?

Golden Park no longer is the derelict baseball stadium it appeared to be in 2016, when a minor league team hadn’t played there in eight years: The five-acre ballpark at 100 Fourth St. now is home to the Columbus Chatt-a-Hoots, who will resume regular season play there on June 2. They’re in the Sunbelt Baseball League that offers a summer season for college athletes hoping to play professionally.

The ballpark is on the western end of the South Commons, a swath of land of around 170 acres along the Chattahoochee River that now includes the city’s softball complex, where teams practiced for the 1996 Olympic Games held in Golden Park, the A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium, the Columbus Civic Center and an ice rink.

The commons originated as vacant land set aside for public use when Georgia established Columbus, a planned city, in 1827 and 1828. Besides the South Commons, Columbus had a north commons that since has been developed, and an east commons now occupied by the Norfolk-Southern rail yard, between Sixth Avenue and 10th Avenue.

In 1873, the state of Georgia by legislative act gave authority over the commons to a local board known as the Commissioners of the Commons, and that arrangement endured until 1928, when the state gave that authority to the city itself, deeding it the land.

“In the early 1920s, the state of Georgia said, ‘You don’t need the Commissioners of the Commons anymore. We’re just going to deed it all to the city of Columbus,’” said Ken Henson, a Columbus attorney and developer who has researched the commons’ history. “But that did not take away necessarily those restrictions that it still be used for public good and public benefit.”

City leaders say those restrictions have not been removed from the entire South Commons, and remain in effect for all of the land that’s not designated in the city and state resolutions.

The resolutions removing a portion of that land from those constraints define the property as “that improved parcel or tract lying west of the east side of Fourth Avenue and south of Fourth Street, and extending across the Chattahoochee River to the south boundary of the city of Columbus.”

Fourth Avenue through downtown is now named Veterans Parkway. City officials said in this context, it is the entrance road to the Civic Center, forming the eastern boundary of the property, which is bordered to the south and west by the river and to the north by Fourth Street, which becomes Victory Drive after passing the softball fields.

The resolutions specify the property is “currently used for the Golden Park baseball stadium, an auditorium, a civic center, and an ice rink.” It also includes the Jonathan Hatcher Skateboard Park just east of Golden Park.

What could happen?

Henderson said state plans to replace the 1962 Oglethorpe Bridge over the river west of the ballpark may create a new gateway into the city, with Golden Park positioned to be a more prominent feature.

“There’s just tons of opportunities down there, especially if you think about, and I know it’s a ways off, the bridge, the Oglethorpe Bridge,” he said. “If they turn that into a gateway, you’ve got that east-west connector coming through there, and then the first thing you see is that historic ballfield, coming through that way.”

The mayor was asked if the city would sell any of that land to a private developer.

“I hate to say no, because I don’t know what will happen after I’m gone,” said Henderson, whose last term as mayor ends in 2026. “But right now, what we would do, if we did engage with somebody for something, we’d do a land lease or something, but all that would be decided.”

When the city last considered selling Golden Park, rumors spread that a developer wanted the site for a casino, though state law has yet to allow casino gambling.

Henderson said that’s not an option now.

“I can emphatically say there’s no casino plan down there, and I can also tell you that I would never sell Golden Park. I think selling Golden Park, with the history of that ballfield, is something I would never condone.”