PAWTUCKET – Unless a final pitch by a local billionaire to save McCoy Stadium is thrown for a strike, residents hoping to forever hold a piece of city baseball history may have that opportunity in a little more than a month’s time.
City officials are planning to hold an auction in September at McCoy Stadium where they will sell off the historic stadium’s seats, signage, player murals and scoreboards. Grace Voll, spokesperson for Mayor Donald R. Grebian, confirmed Thursday to Providence Business News the auction is slated to take place soon after the city’s planned “McCoy’s Final Inning” fireworks and food truck event that has been pushed back twice due to poor weather.
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Learn MoreThe “Final Inning” event on Sept. 3 will give residents and baseball fans alike one last look at the former longtime Pawtucket Red Sox home before its planned demolition by the city to build a new high school.
Voters back in November overwhelmingly approved a $330 million bond to build a new combined 482,500-square-foot high school on the McCoy Stadium site to replace the aging Charles E. Shea and William E. Tolman high schools.
Voll said the auction’s official date has not been finalized yet, mainly because the city wants to keep all of McCoy’s memorabilia preserved as much as possible for the “Final Inning” event on Labor Day weekend. The items that will be auctioned include concession signs, seat section signs, photos, the large player murals hanging along the stadium’s entranceways, the “longest game” scoreboard and the stadium seats.
However, the city will need to work out some logistics with the seats. Voll said many seats installed at McCoy are in rows of 10 or more seats.
“We’ve had former season ticket holders ask us if they could buy their seats,” Voll said, “but they can’t just come off individually. It would be either the seats themselves or the back of the chair, which nobody would want. They want the entire chair.”
Voll said there will “definitely” be rows of two to three seats the city will auction off. But the city will have to look at how the larger rows of seats will be sold off, she said.
Voll said the mayor’s office will need to work with the City Council to determine where the money raised from the auction will go, but emphasized it will “go back to the community.” She said some options for the money could include financing the new high school construction or to local organizations.
“We had talked about the Pawtucket Soup Kitchen [as one option] or to other local organizations that worked with the PawSox are options as well,” Voll said.
As it stands now, Voll said the city is in Stage 2 of the R.I. Department of Education’s funding for the new school. With that, the city should have a demolition date for McCoy by early 2024. If plans continue to remain on track, the city could start tearing down McCoy by next summer, Voll said.
However, plans for McCoy’s future could change depending on the city reviewing billionaire Stefan Soloviev’s proposal on saving the 81-year-old city-owned stadium. Soloviev, chairman of Soloviev Group – the parent company of Crossroads Agriculture, the Colorado Pacific Railroad, the Soloviev Building Corp. and other entities – recently walked through McCoy with Grebian and his staff at discussing Soloviev’s drive to save McCoy and wanting to bring baseball back to the city.
Voll said the meeting between the mayor and Soloviev – who did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment from PBN – went “very well” and that Soloviev is “definitely interested” in saving the stadium. Now, Grebian’s office has asked Soloviev to provide the city a formal proposal to save McCoy by the end of August because “things are moving really fast” with the new high school planning.
Soloviev had contributed to local sports in the past. He presented the University of Rhode Island with a $3 million gift for a new basketball training facility on campus.
Voll said there are “other places” within the city that could be considered for a new high school if the mayor’s office accepts Soloviev’s proposal, but they are limited. Plus, McCoy has the largest land size available for the new high school, she said.
“We would need that [stadium proposal] before we move anything forward,” Voll said. “[Soloviev] is aware that it’s late in the game and we tried to make him aware of … how much of a challenge [saving the stadium] could be. It’s not impossible, but there are a lot of things we have to consider.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
The people of Pawtucket voted to spend an additional $4,400 for every man woman and child in Pawtucket in order to build a new high school?