Turner Field may have played host to its final Major League Baseball game, but the stadium lives on as a functional sports facility.

In a testament to sustainability, the 20-year-old stadium, originally built for the 1996 Summer Olympics before it was converted to a ballpark for the Atlanta Braves, will now be turned into a college football venue for Georgia State University.

It's a refreshing concept, plus an honorable commitment by civic leaders to keep the building operational compared with other sports venues of a simliar age that have been torn down instead of being re-purposed for other sports activities.

Four hours north, the old Charlotte Coliseum, former home of the original Hornets, is one example of an arena under 20 years old that disappeared after the Bobcats, the city's new NBA team, moved downtown to a new facility in 2005.

In Atlanta, Georgia State, a member of the Sun Belt Conference since 2013, has been playing its home games at the Georgia Dome before signing a deal to redevelop Turner Field for football.

The Panthers could potentially start playing football at Turner Field in 2017, according to officials involved in the retrofit. The dome, meanwhile, will be dismantled and turned into a tailgating lot for the Atlanta Falcons after they move into Mercedes-Benz Stadium next year.

Before construction starts at Turner Field, the Braves are having some fun at their old digs before moving into new SunTrust Park next spring. The team announced yesterday that it's converting Turner Field into a temporary public golf course over a three-day period in mid-October.

The Braves aren't the first MLB team to turn their ballpark into a golf layout. The San Diego Padres, partnering with Calloway Golf, did the same thing in 2015 at Petco Park. The golf links return in early November at the Padres' stadium, which opened in 2004.

 

Source : sportingnews.com

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