Cedar Rapids will help pay for upgrades at ballpark

CEDAR RAPIDS - The City Council last night agreed to contribute $1.5 million over 10 years to a renovation fund for the Veterans Memorial Stadium minor league baseball park.

The city commission that oversees the 10-year-old stadium's operation will contribute another $1 million to the fund, while the Kernels baseball team will pay $500,000.

City Council member Kris Gulick said the capital-improvement fund was 10 years late in coming, but he said he was glad that the city, commission and ballclub have agreed to put it in place. He said other city building projects, such as the downtown hotel, are including a capital-reserve fund from the start.

Finance Director Casey Drew told the council that the city will be paying off debt on the stadium's construction for another nine years. After that, lease payments received for the use of the stadium can go into an ongoing capital reserve fund.

Gary Keoppel, president of the Kernels baseball team, called the fund “a great solution” to concerns that the ballclub had raised with the city and the commission.

The proposed deal has been a point of debate for the last couple of years as the ballclub has worked to make a case that the stadium, which opened in 2002, needed repairs and improvements as dictated by the standards of Minor League Baseball.

Among the improvements sought by the club has been a replacement for the stadium's 10-year-old video scoreboard, which the ballclub has said is nearly obsolete. A new one costs more than $500,000.