ATLANTA — Baseball is returning to the site where the Braves first played in Atlanta and Hank Aaron hit his record 715th home run.
The State of Georgia has finalized plans for a new 1,000-seat baseball stadium on a parking lot that includes the footprint of the former Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
That venue helped attract the Milwaukee Braves in 1966 and is best known as the stadium where Aaron broke Babe Ruth's home run record on April 8, 1974. Barry Bonds has since eclipsed the mark.
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium served as the home of the Braves during the 1996 season, when it was replaced by a new facility just a few hundred yards away that was initially built as the main venue for the Centennial Olympic Games.
The old stadium imploded and was replaced by a parking lot for the new headquarters, which became Turner Field. The Braves played at “The Ted” until moving to suburban Truist Park in 2017.
Turner Field was then sold to Georgia State, which converted it into a college football facility known as Center Parc Credit Union Stadium. Now, with development in full swing on what was once a strip of parking lots, the state Board of Regents approved plans for a $15.85 million baseball stadium that will allow the Panthers to move their baseball program from one facility to a few 12 miles away to a location less than a mile from their downtown campus.
As part of the project, the Hank Aaron statue currently located in the Center Parc stadium plaza will be moved to the new stadium. There is already a modest display honoring the spot where his 715th home run cleared the left-field wall.
After Aaron's death in 2021, his funeral procession detoured past the former Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium site.
“There is a lot of work ahead, but this is an exciting day for Georgia State,” athletic director Charlie Cobb said in a statement.
The new stadium will open in time for the 2026 college baseball season. The Panthers also plan to build a new facility for their softball program, adding to an athletic complex that already includes the football stadium and a basketball field that It opened in 2022.
