Grass Scraped Off at the DAP

I pass by the Durham Athletic Park at least once a day on the way to downtown and work. The planned renovations have been under way a few weeks now on the old, well-loved ballpark. It's startling to see nearly all the grass scraped off the field. In fact, I stopped today and took a picture of it, through the construction fencing:

Durham Athletic Park, 8/5/2008 (click to make picture larger)

Some of what will be happening during the renovations were outlined by wral in this article:

Crews will repair the grandstand, install new bathrooms and clubhouses under the grandstand, renovate the concession stands, dugouts and broadcast booth and build a new maintenance building, picnic area and sand-based athletic field.

Field construction is scheduled to be done by the end of the year, with other work wrapping up by next March.

When it's finished, the old park will be a new training ground for minor league baseball. People will come to Durham to learn how to take care of fields and how to "flip" them from festivals to ballgames.

The former home of the Durham Bulls is also getting a new state-of-the-art field and will be home to North Carolina Central University’s baseball team in 2009.

Bull City Rising has covered the renovations and plans for the DAP, and Endangered Durham has some background and fantastic old pictures of the DAP.