This afternoon we stopped by to see Matthew at his house in Summerhill. Afterwards we stopped by the site of old Atlanta Stadium, and walked out to the marker where Hand Aaron hit his 715th home run. Fans had placed flowers, balloons, baseballs, caps, and other tokens of affection at the base.
The old parking lot has fallen into disrepair, though plans the site for the site are most promising. Georgia State plans to build its baseball stadium on the very footprint of the old ballpark, and erect the 715 in left centerfield. Note below the cauldron from the 1996 Olympics, peeking out from behind the trees.
The entire southern border of the parking lot has been replaced with new apartments, parking decks, and other new buildings - the first phase of the redevelopment. To the north ground has been broken on GSU's new convocation center, where the Panthers will play basketball.
Plans for the new GSU ballpark may include leaving the old AFC interior stadium wall intact, behind the outfield wall, or possibly as the outfield wall - a huge Blue Monster, if you will.
Fans had also placed flowers on AFC's old home plate.
With so many new buildings to the south,
old Turner Field can barely be seen on the other side of the buildings.
Discouraging to see the old place in such disrepair, but hopefully soon the new GSU ballpark will be built. They hope to be able to host early round NCAA tourney games.
Once complete, the new development will extend downtown Atlanta another mile to the south. Note convocation center at far lower left. With existing buildings in yellow, according to the diagram below the ballpark is included in the second phase of construction (light blue). Matthew lives in the upper righthand corner. The line of small yellow buildings in the middle are nice new shops and restaurants that M, A, W&MC already frequent. This afternoon there was a line of customers waiting to get into one place.
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