Norwich ― After 30 years of baseball, from high school to college to professional minor leagues, with championships celebrated on the field at all those levels, the Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium now needs its own scouting report.

Norwich City Manager John Salomone told the City Council this week that the city will seek proposals to market Dodd Stadium and its city-owned Norwich business park property for possible sale or redevelopment.

“We are seeking some proposals to re-market or sell Dodd Stadium,” Salomone told the council during his budget presentation Monday. “We’re in a position point now with Dodd Stadium that it’s over 30 years old, and it needs major capital restoration, like any building that was 30 years old.”

Salomone’s proposed 2024-25 budget does not specifically address the status of the stadium, other than a paragraph on “strategies for future budgets.” The Norwich Sea Unicorns summer collegiate team is entering the second year of the two-year lease, which has a mutually agreeable option for 2025.

Salomone said he already has asked the commercial real estate firm marketing the new Occum Industrial Center property, Cushman & Wakefield, to market the 40-acre stadium property – which includes about 12 acres of wetlands.

“We don’t know exactly what the market would be,” Salomone said.

Salomone said the city also has been approached by a broker who represents investors interested in purchasing and upgrading stadiums for continued use as sports venues.

Local attorney Glenn Carberry, who led the effort to attract minor league baseball to the region and build Dodd Stadium, plans to give a presentation to the Norwich City Council later this spring on the history of that effort and the prospects of once again bringing a minor league baseball team with a Major League Baseball affiliation to the city.

The $10 million stadium opened in April 1995 as the home of the Norwich Navigators, the New York Yankees AA minor league affiliate. The Yankees moved out at the end of a storied league championship season in 2002, and the San Francisco Giants’ AA affiliate took over. The Giants departed in 2009, and the following spring the Detroit Tigers brought its Short-Season A minor league team to town.

Just as the newly named Norwich Sea Unicorns signed a new 10-year lease to start in 2020, Major League Baseball eliminated 42 minor league teams, including Norwich and its entire New York-Penn League. The team joined the Futures Collegiate Baseball League after the pandemic.

The Sea Unicorns won the Futures League championship last summer and are set to host the Futures League All-Star game festivities this year on July 22-23.

But Salomone said the stadium now is “underutilized” as a summer collegiate team, and the lease payments of $22,500 per year and shared repair and maintenance costs are not enough to cover the city’s expenses.

Sea Unicorns General Manager Lee Walter said the team would not comment, regarding the city manager’s proposal at this time.

If the property is sold, Salomone proposed the sale revenue be used to pay down the remaining $663,000 in city debt owed on repairs and upgrades made several years ago that included new LED field lights.

“It does provide a very important boost to our self-esteem,” Salomone told the City Council. “We have a team. We have a form of entertainment that’s good clean entertainment for families. But how much can we afford to subsidize that, is the question.”

c.bessette@theday.com