It’s Ballpark neighborhood’s first quiet opening day in 30+ years
Apr 8, 2025, 5:06 PM | Updated: 6:17 pm
FILE: Fireworks explode after the game as the Salt Lake Bees played in one of their last games at Smith’s Ballpark against Oklahoma City on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (Scott G Winterton/Deseret News)
(Scott G Winterton/Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Tuesday is a brand new day for Salt Lake Bees baseball and the team’s fans. It’ll be the first game held in the team’s new stadium in South Jordan.
And about 17 miles north of the new stadium, in Salt Lake’s Ballpark neighborhood, it’s another kind of new day. A quiet opening day with no baseball. It’s been more than 30 years since an opening day, featuring either Bees or Buzz baseball, wasn’t going on on the corner of 1300 South and West Temple.
Related: Daybreak residents express excitement ahead of first Salt Lake Bees game
To put that into perspective, it’s been since “Gangsta’s Paradise and “Kiss From a Rose” were new hits on the radio. It’s been since O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of murder that Smith’s Ballpark was quiet during a Bees home game.
On Tuesday night, the Salt Lake Bees, a Pacific Coast League Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, will instead play at their new field, The Ballpark at America First Square in South Jordan.
Construction continues on a baseball stadium in the Daybreak neighborhood of South Jordan on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. When finished, the ballpark will become the new home of the Salt Lake Bees. (Isaac Hale/Deseret News)
Ballpark Community Chair Councilwoman Amy Hawkins said the quiet night on Tuesday will be an adjustment.
“Every game feels like a celebration,” Hawkins said. “Especially when … the beautiful weather that we’ve been having. We’ll miss that. For sure.”
Why the move?
The Larry H. Miller Company owns the team. They moved because their lease at Smith’s Ballpark was up. But the Deseret News reported that team owners Gail Miller and Miller Company CEO Steve Starks, “cited crime and safety, as well as parking in the Ballpark neighborhood” as other reasons they decided to pull up stakes and head south.
In 2023, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and then-Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown announced a 32% reduction in violent crimes around the Ballpark neighborhood.
But in the years before, including 2019, when there were four homicides in less than a year, residents, businesses, and people walking from their cars to the baseball field reported they didn’t feel safe.
What’s next for Ballpark neighborhood?
According to KSL.com, about two years after the Bees said they’d leave Salt Lake City, Mayor Mendenhall announced the old stadium would be “repurposed.” The idea is to turn it into an area that includes creative spaces, shopping, and entertainment. The field, KSL.com reported, will become a “mixed-use urban space.”
Hawkins said she hopes to hear something about an intermediate action plan for Smith’s Ballpark before construction begins in 2026. She said an entertainment venue could be good for the neighborhood.
And Hawkins said she wishes the best for Daybreak, especially in light of recent conversations held in Salt Lake City about how sports, like Utah’s new hockey team, can invigorate a neighborhood.
“I definitely wish those neighborhoods all the best in the world,” Hawkins said. “We hope that sports do to their neighborhood what didn’t happen for us.”
