Members from UTC and The Engel Stadium Foundation inked an agreement Monday morning that will ensure the historic ballpark will live on as an intramural facility for the university. Shown signing the document are (from left to right): Dr. Richard Brown, Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance, Operations, and Information Technology at UTC; Becky Browder, Chair of the Engel Stadium Foundation; and, Dr. Steven Angle, UTC Chancellor.
photo by Dennis Norwood
A new partnership between The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and The Engel Foundation is designed to bring new life to Historic Engel Stadium.
With “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” playing on the organ in the background, officials from UTC and the Engel Foundation signed an agreement that could make the facility available for UTC student and community use as early as this fall for some activities.
"Instead of being simply an artifact that no one is allowed to touch or use, through adaptive reuse, Engel Stadium will become a living and breathing place again, poised to be enjoyed, not only by those who cherish the old memories made here, but by those young people who will make their own memories,” said Becky Browder, Chair of the Engel Foundation.
Plans call for an expansion of UTC’s intramural complex on the site and to make the new facility available for use by the surrounding community. The facility could also contain exhibits that commemorate the history of the stadium. The field could also be used for other events, such as concerts.
“When the city and the county conveyed this property to UTC, they told us to work collaboratively to keep this stadium as a cultural and recreational asset for the community. They wanted us to celebrate the history that made Engel Stadium a vital part of Chattanooga’s story,” said Richard Brown, Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance, Operations, and Information Technology at UTC. “And they told us to make sure that baseball would always be able to be played at Engel Stadium. This new plan does all these.”
Van West, state historian and director of the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, discussed the importance of historic preservation and how adaptive reuse can be used to introduce new uses to an older facility while honoring the history.
“We need to keep history at the forefront of what it means to be a Tennessean,” said West. “And Chattanooga is doing that better than any other city in the state.”
During its hey days, Engel Stadium hosted baseball legends and hall of famers including Harmon Killebrew, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Several years ago, the stadium received some significant capital improvements when part of the film “42” was shot on location at Engel, but the facility is still in need of renovations and updating. University and Engel Foundation officials will seek to raise private funds and use student activity fees to make some of renovations necessary to ready the facility for student use.
County Mayor Jim Coppinger recalled playing on the Engel Stadium field and going to concerts there while addressing the gathering.
photo by Dennis Norwood