Developing a Winner
Lake Erie Crushers, City of Avon step up to the plate with new Frontier League ballpark

By Mark Watt 

On June 2, the Lake Erie Crushers jogged through the gates of their new ballpark in Avon to a welcoming crowd on opening day. An expansion team in the Frontier League, an independent, Midwest-based baseball league with a level of play comparable to Class A Minor League ball, the Crushers are bringing professional baseball to Lorain County for the first time. In return, the team gains access to a newly built, $12 million baseball park with “all the amenities of a professional ballpark, just on a smaller scale,” according to Ron Landig, president of RWL Architects, Inc., which designed the field with assistance from OSports, a division of Osborne Engineering that specializes in sports facility planning.

“The City of Avon invested in a well designed, well built facility,” says Christopher Wynn, director of design at OSports. “It’s a substantial ballpark, but it’s also extremely intimate, which is rare in professional sports, so that you can really be right on top of the action.”

Built with Infinity Construction acting as general contractor, All Pro Freight Stadium is a state-of-the-art facility with accommodations for 5,000 visitors, including loges, box seats and even lawn seating, as well as a pair of concession stands, a party deck and a team shop. Utilizing artificial turf, the baseball field is engineered to provide efficient drainage and low maintenance costs, while providing a comfortable playing surface.

“We’re very excited about the new ballpark,” says Paul Siegwarth, assistant general manager, operations with the Lake Erie Crushers (who previously held a similar position with Cleveland Indians Single A affiliate Lake County Captains). “It’s an impressive achievement. When we brought the ballplayers onto the field for the first time, it was like seeing kids at Christmas. Their eyes get wide and ‘wow’ is the first word that comes out of their mouths. It’s the same for the fans too.”

Teaming up
Jim Smith, mayor of Avon, says that the new stadium is a dramatic first step in a concerted effort to transform the underdeveloped interchange of Rt. 90 and Rt. 611 from a truckstop into a major economic driver for the City of Avon and surrounding areas. While Smith had originally looked at the possibility of attracting medical buildings or retail to develop near the interchange, six years ago he crossed paths with Matt Perry, a consultant with National Sports Services. Perry connected Smith with Steven Edelson, managing director at Chicago-based International Facilities Group, who was interested in becoming a partner in the ownership group of a new Frontier League team – what eventually would become the Lake Erie Crushers.

“It was a good fit, for them and for us. The idea from our point of view was to increase the value of the property around here and that has already happened,” Smith says, noting that his vision for the area expands beyond the new stadium. A new YMCA is being built next door along a brand new access road. He hopes to add an indoor soccer or hockey facility in the future. “We also get a boost in economic activity here and with the ballpark, which the city owns and the team maintains, we have a nice facility to be used not just for baseball games, but also for concerts, car shows and other events. I’ve thought this thing out long and hard. We’ll put a million people at the site a year.”

To read the rest of this article, download the June 2009 issue of Properties Magazine now. [June 2009; download PDF; 8.5 mb]