Norwich ― The Norwich Sea Unicorns will play summer collegiate baseball for the next two summers at the Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium, but it is questionable whether baseball, or even the stadium, will continue beyond 2024.

The Norwich City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve a two-year lease extension with the Sea Unicorns’ parent owner, Oneonta Athletic Corp. that runs through the 2023 and 2024 seasons, with a possible mutually agreed third season in 2025.

But the short period is indicative of the uncertainty of the stadium’s future, City Manager John Salomone told the City Council Monday. The city will spend the next two years evaluating the stadium and whether it is viable to continue with the summer collegiate team or try once again to attract a minor league baseball team with a Major League Baseball team affiliation.

If not, he said the city could explore selling “the acreage” in the Norwich Business Park for economic development.

“We will look at the viability of continuing with the stadium, knowing that the stadium is closing in on 30 years old and will need major capital improvements to continue operating as a stadium,” Salomone told the City Council Monday. “It’s kind of reached its useful life. Unfortunately, earlier in its existence it did not receive all the preventive maintenance that could be accomplished, but even with that it is a 30-year-old stadium.”

The $10 million Dodd Stadium opened with much fanfare as the AA home of the Norwich Navigators. The team’s first eight years were as the New York Yankees affiliate. The team switched affiliation to the San Francisco Giants before that team moved to Richmond, Va. in 2009. Norwich then landed the Connecticut Tigers, a Short Season A minor league team affiliated with the Detroit Tigers in 2010.

Norwich reached a new 10-year lease with that team in August 2019, but that fall, Major League Baseball launched a plan to eliminate 42 minor league teams, including the Connecticut Tigers and its entire league, the New York-Penn League.

The 2020 season was lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the newly named Norwich Sea Unicorns switched to a summer collegiate team in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.

The loss of a minor league team and the pandemic delayed planned city improvements to the stadium, including an overhaul of the failing HVAC system in the clubhouses. Sea Unicorns General Manager Lee Walter said Monday he is working with the city Public Works Department on makeshift improvements, including installing dehumidifiers and fans for this season.

The new lease extension calls for the city to make safety improvements to the infield by May 15 and to replace one of two failing ice machines, used for both concessions and ice packs for player injuries.

The Sea Unicorns will play 32 games at Dodd Stadium beginning on Memorial Day 29. The Mystic Schooners, another summer collegiate team in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, also likely will play at Dodd Stadium this summer as a sub-tenant to the Sea Unicorns.

Walter said the lease contract with the Schooners has not yet been signed, but the Mystic Schooners schedule shows the team playing home games at Dodd Stadium.

Mayor Peter Nystrom said the Sea Unicorns average 1,367 fans in 2022, about 500 more than the Connecticut Tigers’ final season. He urged residents to support the team.

“There is a lot more excitement with the college level,” Nystrom said. “All of the players are taken from colleges probably within an hour’s drive of the stadium. They’re local kids. Their families attend the games. … The baseball is quite good. They’re very aggressive, very enthusiastic. They want to continue baseball and maybe get to the major leagues, so the effort is there in every game. And I would encourage people to attend these games and support them.”

c.bessette@theday.com