Historic NC baseball park about to get a ‘Green Monster’ wall, other new features

Joe Marusak
·4 min read

Mooresville approved the first part of a multimillion dollar plan this week to transform its more than century-old baseball park into a vibrant centerpiece of an already bustling downtown.

By fall 2025, town-owned Moor Park on South Broad Street is scheduled to have an entirely updated grass playing field, new concessions and restroom buildings and a smaller version of the Green Monster wall at Boston’s Fenway Park, according to design plans unveiled at Monday night’s Mooresville Board of Commissioners meeting.

Commissioners unanimously approved a contract of up to $553,935 for landscape architect The Dodd Studio of Fort Mill to design the Moor Park improvements.

“It’s part of our history, and it deserves our respect and attention,” Mooresville commissioner Gary West told the audience before casting his vote Monday night.

“It’s almost as old as the town,” West said at a board meeting on Friday where commissioners reviewed items that would be up for a vote at Monday’s regular meeting. “This is our culture, this is our history.”

Mooresville was founded in 1873, when the North Carolina General Assembly approved its incorporation charter. The charter also changed the name from The Village of Moore, according to a history on the town website.

Mill team likely played at site in early 1900s

Moor Park on South Broad Street dates as far back as the early 1900s, according to period newspaper clippings provided to The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday by Sara McKee, a Mooresville Public Library archivist.

A team from the former Mooresville Cotton Co. mill complex on nearby South Main Street may have played on a more rudimentary version of the field as early as 1906, according to a newspaper clipping that year, McKee said.

“If the weather conditions are favorable, a game of baseball will be played at the ball ground near the new mill tomorrow afternoon between Mooresville and a team from Longford,” according to the article.

A team from the massive former Mooresville Cotton Co. mill complex on nearby South Main Street may have played at the Moor Park baseball field at least as early as 1906, according to a newspaper clipping that year.
A team from the massive former Mooresville Cotton Co. mill complex on nearby South Main Street may have played at the Moor Park baseball field at least as early as 1906, according to a newspaper clipping that year.

Back then, the park may have merely consisted of first-, second- and third-base diamonds, a home plate and a pitcher’s mound set in a large patch of grass, McKee surmised. The site most likely lacked buildings for concessions, restrooms and maintenance equipment, she said.

A 1902 fire insurance map shows the mill building in existence across from the present-day ball field, so teams possibly played there as early as that year, she said.

The park was fenced in 1921, according to a newspaper clipping from that year.

The Moor Park baseball field in Mooresville, N.C., received fencing in 1921, according to this newspaper clipping from that year.
The Moor Park baseball field in Mooresville, N.C., received fencing in 1921, according to this newspaper clipping from that year.

The present Moor Park complex was built in 1936, with lights added a year later, according to information that town staff displayed at Monday night’s meeting.

The field and buildings are now decades out of date, officials said.

Planned Moor Park improvements

FitFields, the sports division of The Dodd Studio, has designed numerous sports stadiums and complexes in the Carolinas, including baseball stadiums in Florence, South Carolina, and High Point, and major renovations to Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, where the UNC Tar Heels football team plays its home games.

Updating the park would attract even more visitors to downtown and likely spur more development, town officials said.

New features will include ADA-compliant restrooms and parking; a concessions building; and adequate maintenance storage facilities, according to the town.

The current concessions and restroom buildings date to 1980 and will be replaced.

The “Green Monster” wall will rise 20 feet in center field, flanked by 8-foot-tall fencing. Fenway Park’s left field Green Monster wall soars 37 feet, 2 inches.

The playing field will be improved to the quality of an NCAA, American Legion or Wooden Bat League field, according to the town.

Construction of the improvements is scheduled to begin in January and take nine months to complete, town officials said. A grandstand will highlight a future second phase, officials said.

At a town board retreat in February, commissioners agreed to commit $5 million in the town’s capital improvement plan to the improvements. Money will come from the town’s general fund, officials said.

Home of the Mooresville Spinners

The Mooresville Spinners team, part of the Southern Collegiate Baseball League, has leased the park since 2015, town officials said at Monday’s meeting.

League champions in 2023, the Spinners open their 2024 season at home against the Statesville Owls at 7 p.m. May 30. The team concludes the season with an away game against the Winston-Salem-based Carolina Disco Turkeys on July 20, according to the team schedule on Mooresville Spinners.com.

The Spinners have six years left on their lease, team general manager Phillip Loftin told the Observer on Wednesday.

The field upgrade could draw “big-time” college baseball games to the stadium, including conference tournaments, he said.

Loftin came up with the Green Monster idea.

“I think the impact on the entire downtown will be huge,” he said. ”Every business in the downtown area should profit.”