Let’s just say that 2022 is shaping up as a most improved year for Chattanooga Lookouts President Rich Mozingo.
In 2020, the Lookouts didn’t play a single game at AT&T Field or elsewhere due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. The only Lookouts revenue generated was through the team gift shop, and Mozingo and his staff were furloughed on May 1 of that year, though there were two rounds of assistance through the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
Mozingo’s furlough occurred less than seven months after he was named as the 2019 Southern League Executive of the Year.
Last year was better, but Chattanooga still played most of its games before limited crowds due to Major League Baseball’s COVID-related guidelines. As last season was winding down, Lookouts investor John Woods was charged by federal regulators for defrauding more than 400 people through a Ponzi scheme.
The here and now for Mozingo is that both Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger continue to be fully supportive of a new Southside home for the Lookouts and that there is now a ceremonial first pitch target date of April 2025.
Mozingo took time to field several questions on where things currently stand.
Q: What took so long for Thursday’s details to be revealed?
A: “This thing started 27 years ago – not the baseball stadium down there but the redevelopment of the Southside. There were a lot of things that happened years and years ago that kind of cut the Southside off from Chattanooga, and there has been a group of people working on this thing. There were studies that started in 2003 about what to do with the site that we’re talking about going on, the Wheland Foundry/U.S. Pipe site, and it’s just been a long, hard process.
“COVID didn’t help this thing at all, and there are a lot of hurdles of different things you’ve got to get past to where you can get to the point where you have all the facts. If you just go out to a city and ask it to build us a baseball stadium, you’re never going to win that, so we knew that if we didn’t have all our facts together and everything laid out in an unbelievably concise plan that everyone could see, people were going to scream and yell.
“We’re still going to have some detractors, and there is no doubt about that, but we have laid out a plan that I would put up against any plan of any stadium anywhere in the United States. Mayor Kelly said that we’re going to pay three times the rent that the Tennessee Titans pay for their stadium, so we’re doing our part, and the city and county are doing their part. Gary Chazen and Perimeter Properties are doing their part. This is one where all the stars had to align.”
Q: When new ballparks were built in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in Columbia, South Carolina, taxpayers incurred most of the cost, but each team through Jason Freier’s Hardball Capital provided a respectable chunk as well. Why is no money being put up front by the Lookouts?
A: “In year one, we will pay $1 million. In year two, we will pay $1 million. This is the way that made the most sense for the city and the county, to be very honest. Their financial people drove this, and it’s very much mirrored after what’s happened in Knoxville and what (University of Tennessee System President) Randy Boyd did. We used that as our plan moving forward and have kind of followed that same path.
“Our city and county were very comfortable with us doing it that way. There is going to be a lot of money put in from the Lookouts for equipment inside the facility, but as far as money towards the construction of the stadium, there will be no money from the Lookouts up front.”
Q: What will capacity be at the new stadium, and how many spectators will actually have seats?
A: “Right this second, because everything is so fluid in these situations, we will probably have fewer fixed seats than we have (6,340) at AT&T Field. We will have seating berms and outfield concourses at the new stadium, so we will have the capacity to go 7,500 or 8,000.”
Q: How many baseball stadiums also house soccer, should the Chattanooga FC decide to play future games there?
A: “Louisville has done it. Jacksonville has played soccer in its facility. We will be able to fit a soccer field in there, and we will be able to fit a football field in there. We will have a place to where goal posts can drop into the ground, because it is going to be a multi-use facility.
“If this was just a 70-event-per-year stadium, it wouldn’t make sense for anybody. We plan on having other sporting events. We plan on having wedding receptions and Rotary lunches. In 2019, the ballpark in Fort Wayne did 800 events that were not Fort Wayne TinCaps baseball.”
Q: Mayor Jim Coppinger sure has been vocal about a new stadium in recent days, weeks and months. Do you see this as his legacy?
A: “There is no doubt. This is going to be so transformative for the Southside of Chattanooga. I thought Jon Kinsey was a tremendous mayor in this city, and I read where he did $70 million worth of development during his time as the mayor. Most people think the development of this alone will get north of $1 billion, so that’s absolutely a legacy piece for him.”
Q: What’s the next step in this process?
A: “The development board has to pass it, and then the city council and county commission have to pass it. I think the mayors know that they’re going to have the support in both of those places to make this thing happen, and we think this will go through pretty easily.”
Q: What does this all say about the persistence both Freier and you have shown, especially given COVID and having to part ways with Woods?
A: “Hats off to the city and county governments for hanging in there with us, as well. The Chazens at Perimeter Properties have had countless people come to them and want to do things on that property that they didn’t think were right for the city of Chattanooga.
“They have waited for the right time and the right anchor tenant to do something for the gateway of our city. I am super excited for this city, because I think it will be transformative for all of us.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.