The City of South Bend has major league renovation plans for its minor league baseball stadium.

Those plans call for increasing the seating capacity of Coveleski Stadium and relocating the main public entrance to the center field area.

“The ball park is 23 some years old,” said city Economic Planner Bill Schalliol. “So this is the right time for this kind of project.”

More than two decades have passed since Coveleski Stadium opened in 1987. “I would encourage people to go over and look at what Fort Wayne did,” said Dick Nussbaum, Legal Counsel for the Midwest Baseball League. “Fort Wayne actually had a stadium that was built seven or eight years after ours (South Bend’s), they’ve completely abandoned that stadium and have built a brand new stadium downtown.”

According to Nussbaum, the attendance at Fort Wayne’s new stadium last season was three times higher than the attendance for Coveleski Stadium. “And it’s in conjunction with downtown development,” said Nussbaum. “There’s residential projects, there’s a new parking garage, I mean it’s part of a much bigger program, just as what the city here is trying to do.”

In the past year, the City of South Bend has acquired nearly 15 acres of property near the ballpark, including the former Gates car dealership, and Fred’ Transmission. It’s hoped that private developers will step forward to occupy some of that space.

Meantime, initial efforts will focus on improving the stadium itself. “When it’s all said and done, it could be a several million dollar project, several tens of million dollar project realistically,” said Schalliol.

Plans call for the work to be done in several phases, defined as follows in a city news release:

Phase 1 plans for the Cove include renovation to existing concourse suites, press box and clubhouses to start before the 2010 baseball season.

In Phase 2, the most extensive work will take place. A new main entrance would be built in centerfield, including a team store, concession stands and restrooms. Within the ballpark, regarded berms will enable new enhancements: a bar, a picnic terrace, a high-top group area.

Phase 3 would focus on right field and include the addition of new batting areas, a Kids Zone with kids’ concession areas and a display area for semi-trucks.

But if South Bend is interested in keeping up with other Midwest League cities, City Councilman Dr. David Varner has another suggestion. “They pay $1 million a year to lease the stadium in Kane County (Illinois) wherever that is, the western suburbs of Chicago. In South Bend the baseball team gets the entire use of that stadium for an entire year, for $75 thousand per year.”

And while Fort Wayne does indeed have a new stadium, it is called “Parkview Field,” after the health care entity that agreed to pay $3 million for the naming rights. “I think also that if you’re going to move forward with this you need to have some private partner in place, I’ll be happy to probably support it if we have the private partnership in place, but if we keep building on this, ‘if you build it, they will come’ model, with the private to come later, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense,” said Dr. Varner.

Today the renovation plans were laid out for the South Bend Redevelopment Commission. On Monday afternoon, a similar presentation is planned before the South Bend Common Council.