Seven Things You Need to Know About the New Baseball Stadium

1. Seating

There will be 2,500 permanent chair back seats.  Regular-season capacity will be about 4,000 with additional room for fans in grassy areas.  Capacity can increase to 7,000 with temporary seating for postseason play.

2. Luxury Accommodations

For fans there will be luxury suites and a club area for over 200 people.  For the common folk, there will be a large plaza near the entrance way and a paved concourse encapsulating the stadium, allowing the antsy fans to "take a lap." For the players and coaches, they'll have a team video room, players lounge with a new locker room and coaches' offices.  The bullpen and batting cage areas will also be expanded.

3. Fake Grass

The field will be artificial turf, giving a gut-shot to baseball purists, but in this part of the country, keeping a natural turf field in great shape throughout the rough weather of early spring can be extremely difficult.

4.  Ground-Breaking

Construction will begin in early to mid-February.  It will take approximately 18 months to finish, finished in time for the start of the 2019 season.

5.  Funding

I don't know where they're getting every dollar for the $49 million project, but $30 million is coming from their JMI Sports signing bonus.  Thirty. Million. Dollar. Signing. Bonus.  I need to talk to the guy who made that happen.

6.  Sorry Purple Lot

The new stadium will take away your parking spots, but do not worry too much about your beloved gravel lot: a new surface lot or parking garage is on the table.

7.  What will happen to The Cliff?

Cliff Hagan Stadium will be transformed into a new tennis facility in the Spring of 2020.  Tennis is the only sport without major renovations in the last decade.  By the time it's all complete, Barnhart will have created an "athletic village" on South Campus.