NORTH AUGUSTA — Thursday in North Augusta was a day more than four years in the making.
The City of North Augusta and the Augusta GreenJackets officially broke ground on the baseball stadium at Riverside Village at Hammond's Ferry, the official name for the site formerly known as Project Jackson.
While work began on the stadium several months ago, Thursday was a symbolic part of the project and featured elected officials from throughout Aiken County, as well as GreenJackets' management and ownership, Minor League Baseball President Pat O'Connor and San Francisco Giants General Manager Bobby Evans.
"This is an exciting day ... but to me this is also the symbolic groundbreaking for the start of the development of Riverside Village at Hammond's Ferry," North Augusta Mayor Bob Pettit said, referencing the entire scope of the development. "It could not have been done without the leadership of (former) Mayor (Lark) Jones, the commitment of (North Augusta) City Council and the hard work, extraordinarily hard work of our city administrator, Mr. Todd Glover. I'm a late-comer to the scene, and I admit it, but I'm really excited about being now a part of this project which will make North Augusta a regional destination."
Much of Thursday's ceremony focused on not just the state-of-the-art baseball stadium, but everything that will come with the facility and potentially make North Augusta into a destination throughout the region.
"The bigger picture ... is really what is going to be happening in addition just to the ballpark," said Chris Schoen, with GreenJackets' ownership. "We talk about the ballpark being a catalyst by bringing people to this site to see baseball, to go to special events, to go to concerts. Our hope is that we've got three- to maybe even 500,000 people a year (attending games), and with that kind of a catalyst all of a sudden you can fill places to eat – fast-casual, fine-dining restaurants, other retail. ... The bigger picture for me is not just this ballpark, but the kind of environment the village is going to be creating here, and it is going to be a regional draw."
Fellow owner Jeff Eiseman added, "This project, for North Augusta, it's going to be a game-changer. This is going to be a true destination. There's nowhere else on the river in the CSRA that has development where people can live, work and play. This is really going to be a transformative ballpark with not only what we're going to have out here at the river but the way that this ballpark is going to interact with the community."
Last week, Eiseman said the stadium's nine suites have already sold out. Season suite prices for 2018 ranged from $25,000 to $35,000, he added.
The stadium will reportedly seat more than 4,000 fans, with individual ticket prices as low as $6 to $17. Club seating for the season would start at about $1,000 a season.
The stadium is still on track for the 2018 season-opener.
"It's fun to see the dugouts already in place," said Evans. "We can start to already picture what this is going to look like a year from now."
