Durham Bulls Athletic Park upgrades to exceed $10 million, double the initial estimate

The City of Durham will spend twice as much as expected to make improvements to Durham Bulls Athletic Park as required by an agreement with Major League Baseball.

The City Council voted 5-0 Monday to budget an extra $5.35 million for the project, on top of the original $5.22 million it approved last June. The total cost of the project is almost $10.6 million. The city’s cap for construction costs is $9.1 million, with the Durham Bulls paying the balance, according to the city.

Skanska, the company that won the bid for the project, cited rising costs of construction materials that have affected the entire building industry during the coronavirus pandemic. The market saw an 11% increase in the costs of materials between March and September 2021 and expects that to continue as the city seeks bids for the project in May, Skanska told Durham officials, according to city documents.

The Durham Bulls Minor League Baseball team is a Triple-A affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays.

The city, which leases the downtown stadium to the Durham Bulls, is required to make upgrades by April 2025 as part of its license with Major League Baseball. Upgrades include a new batting tunnel, which is an enclosed area for players to practice batting; front office and player locker room reconfigurations and upgrades, training room upgrades, HVAC, plumbing, electrical and architectural finishes.

City documents show the Durham Bulls generated $48.5 million in total economic impact in 2019, which includes $1.4 million in local taxes, from visitor spending. The report, provided by Discover Durham, also said the Bulls supported more than 23,000 jobs “directly” related to the team.

In 2019, DBAP hosted 70 home games and dozens of other events, including the city of Durham’s Fourth of July celebration. The 2020 season was canceled to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Council member Jillian Johnson said she reviewed the city’s lease with the Durham Bulls, which expires in 2033.

“Back in 2014, before any of us were on council, we made some pretty significant commitments to the Bulls,” said Johnson. “In that lease, it anticipates these kinds of capital upgrades and explicitly states that they are to be paid by the city.

“We have tied ourselves into making these repairs,” she added.

Johnson acknowledged that other teams have similar contracts with cities nationwide, but she hopes that the city will negotiate a “better” contract in the future so the city doesn’t have to bear so much of the stadium’s costs.

“I’m disappointed that this [cost] is falling all on our residents,” Johnson said.

She said she had inquired about naming rights, but a spokesperson for the athletic park said neither the city nor the Durham Bulls can sell the naming rights to the facility to others and “no revenues have been received by either party for naming rights.” The city decided the name in early 1995, before the ballpark opened.

The Discover Durham economic impact data shows that 45% of fans in the 2019 season came from Wake County while 39% came from Durham and 8% came from Orange County.

City staff told the council the budget adjustments needed to be approved soon so the construction timeline can stay on track to meet MLB’s deadline.

Renovation of the office area is expected to begin in August and end in January 2023. From September through March 2023, crews would work on player area upgrades, while work on the batting tunnels would last from October through mid-April.

“If that deadline is not met and games are canceled, that would result in the loss of approximately $300,000 in revenue per canceled game for the Bulls,” according to city documents.

The legacy of ‘Bull Durham’

The Durham Bulls moved from the Durham Athletic Park to its current downtown home in 1995. Durham Athletic Park now serves as the home for the N.C. Central University and the Durham School of the Arts Bulldogs baseball teams.

The 1988 movie “Bull Durham,” starring Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, was filmed with the Durham Athletic Park as its centerpiece. Nearly 35 years later, the Bulls are still one of the best known Minor League Baseball teams.

Opening Day for the 2022 season is set for April 12 against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.