Renovations underway to get Slugger Field ready for Louisville's - WDRB 41 Louisville News

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Changing a baseball stadium to a soccer stadium is not as simple as you might think and that renovation is now underway at Louisville Slugger Field.

"We're preparing -- our training actually starts on Monday," James O'Connor, Louisville City FC's Coach said. "So our players are starting to arrive this week."

The pro soccer team will debut on March 28th and the excitement is building. The baseball field will become a soccer field and a shared-use stadium.

We were not allowed to shoot the construction of the retractable mound, but there are some pictures of the deep hole encased in wood.

"It's going to be another first," O'Connor said. "It'll obviously be a pitcher's mound, it'll be retractable. For us, the most important thing is making sure the players are comfortable with the pitch, with the environment and we get as many people as we can to the stadium."

As Louisville City Football Club builds its fan base, it says the long term goal is to have a stadium of its own in a few years. Right now, the team is happy to have a place to play home games, while a practice facility is under construction on River Road.

Not every seat at Slugger Field will be sold for the soccer games as club plans to make only the seats with the best viewing areas available.

There was plenty of open space in the main concourse of Slugger Field. Now two thousand square feet of it is the new locker room for the soccer team.

"We get to do a lot of really nice stuff around town, so it's a pleasure," Brent Aaron said of working on the locker room. He's working on tiling for the showers portion. The locker room facility will also include laundry, a training room, coaches offices and -- of course -- a locker room. 

Aaron says the project is going fast. "I think it's going to be great and they are going to have a nice facility. The Bats' place is very nice."

O'Connor took WDRB through the locker room facility still under construction. "This is obviously going to be the main locker room and going to have four TV screens. The lockers will come across and wrap themselves around the walls," he explained.

"We're really looking forward to an opportunity to play in a Downtown stadium," O'Connor said. 

He says it will be a fun experience for the team and the crowd.

The season ticket deadline to be a Founding Member with all the perks ends on Friday. More than two-thousand have been sold so far.

You can purchase season tickets here. 

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