Ballpark NEXT: The future of Smith’s Ballpark and the Ballpark community

SALT LAKE CITY — Smith’s Ballpark’s fate is uncertain as the Salt Lake City Bees prepare to move to South Jordan. To help decide what should be done with the stadium, the city is hosting a contest called Ballpark NEXT.

According to SLC.gov, Ballpark NEXT allows Salt Lake City residents to “provide their ideas to potentially inform and inspire the next steps of the City’s development of the ballpark site and City-owned adjacent properties.” There are now nine finalist proposals in the competition.

Chair of the Ballpark Community Council  Amy Hawkins joins Dave and Dujanovic host Debbie Dujanovic and guest host Taylor Morgan to share her thoughts as a Ballpark neighborhood resident.

Hawkins says she was part of a selection committee. The committee chose the nine final proposals from a list of 30 semi finalists.

“I’d say there are a lot of elements from individual proposals that I’m excited about,” she tells the hosts. “Anything that opens up more green space to the community is really exciting … We’re a neighborhood that’s really underserved in terms of green space.”

Along with this, Howard says the ballpark should remain city owned public land.

“Currently we get apartment proposals of all kinds being proposed month after month,” she says. “We’re not at a lack for dense housing being proposed in this neighborhood … It’s the fact that this is a public resource and we wanna consider how to keep it an exciting public resource, like a park.”

Click here to vote in the contest and learn more about the nine finalist proposals.

Listen to the full segment below.

Dave & Dujanovic can be heard on weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon.

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