The 100-year-old baseball field in Reverchon Park reopened this week after $5.5 million in renovations.
For almost a decade, the city has been debating and negotiating what to do with the field that is home to the North Dallas High School baseball team.
The 41.3 acre Reverchon Park was established in 1914 on the outskirts of Dallas. Eleven years later, the nearby city of Cedar Springs was annexed by Dallas and the Oak Lawn section of the city grew.
In 2018, Dallas was negotiating with the owner of a minor league baseball team to renovate and begin play in Reverchon Park. Broken bleachers held 500 spectators. The team would have been allowed to replace the old bleachers and add 1,400 additional seats. What was never agreed upon was where so many people coming to watch a game would park. Presumably, a high-rise garage would be built, taking up a considerable amount of park land.
Also proposed were new bathrooms to replace the out-of-date and barely functional facilities that were there. The minor league team was also going to add a ticket office, boxes and concessions.
The group proposing turning the field into a minor league ballpark had until the end of the year to put funding together but wasn’t able to do so.
Two years later, the city tried negotiating a deal with other private developers. Again they failed to reach an agreement.
In 2023, the city council approved a $5 million contract to renovate the baseball field. The money came from DISD, which wanted to save North Dallas High School’s home field. Dallas and DISD signed a 30-year deal to manage the facility together.
The current renovation took two years to complete. The grandstand has been restored. The field has been regraded with new natural grass turf and irrigation added. The bullpens have been upgraded and new dugouts added. New restroom replace the dilapidated old facilities and a new scoreboard stands in the outfield. A concessions building is planned and, according to a city spokesperson, will be completed soon.
— David Taffet