Money tight for Durham baseball museum

The city wants state help to get the project, but it is getting no joy

DURHAM -- Durham is going to the legislature for help landing a baseball museum, despite discouraging words from state Senate leader Marc Basnight.

Alan DeLisle, the city's economic development director, said Durham will ask the state for money to help with a proposed "fan experience" facility for minor-league baseball.

DeLisle said the museum is a $55 million project, including $25 million needed for property acquisition among other expenses.

"We're asking the state for piece of that, not the whole $25 million," he said this week.

In January, Basnight, the Senate president pro tem, told Durham officials that "monies for projects such as this are just difficult."

Still, DeLisle said this week, "I think the proposal is fairly strong."

Durham has been in conversation for more than a year with Minor League Baseball, a national organization for minor-league teams, about a museum in Durham. MiLB has also contracted to operate the historic Durham Athletic Park once its renovation is finished later this year.

"That's about as far as it's gone," John Cook, MiLB's senior vice president, said about the museum idea this week. "There's quite a bit of work left ... but it's something we'll keep working on."

He said, Durham "has been a good home for minor-league baseball for over 100 years."

Durham was one of the original members when Minor League Baseball began in 1901, as The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, Cook said. Judge William G. Bramham of Durham became the organization's president in 1932, and its headquarters was in Durham from then until 1947.

The headquarters has been in St. Petersburg, Fla., since 1971.

DeLisle said Durham also has asked U.S. Rep. David Price to get $5 million from the federal government for the project.

"We're very much engaging the private sector in this as well," he said.

Lawyer Don Etheridge, representing Minor League Baseball, said in November that MiLB had hired museum designer Lee Skolnik Architecture to consult on the museum project. Etheridge described the museum as an interactive "fan experience."

Two buildings and a parking lot adjacent to the DAP are reserved for a baseball museum in a downtown-redevelopment proposal that Greenfire Development of Durham has presented to the City Council.

"It's like an option the city has if we move forward," DeLisle said.