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Skylands Park: Goodbye to baseball

Skylands Park

With a day-care center on site, a flea market proposed for the concourse and the ballpark reconfigured for recreational uses, it doesn’t look like pro baseball will ever return to Sussex County’s Skylands Park.

The ballpark was once home to the New Jersey Cardinals (short season A; NY-Penn League) and the Sussex Skyhawks (independent; Can-Am League). But baseball failed both times, and the ballpark ended up being sold to businessman Al Dorso. Dorso did say he would explore bringing pro baseball back to the ballpark, but since then he’s converted one of the ballpark buildings to a day-care center and proposed setting up a daily seasonal marketplace on the concourse and in the parking lot.

That proposal didn’t sit well with the Frankford (N.J.) Land Use Board, which rejected the proposal. The problem: the owner of a next-door mall says having a flea market would drive down rents at his facility, with potential tenants objecting to the usage.

Now, the story here isn’t that a flea market was rejected. The issue is that Dorso is looking for alternative uses for the facility, and right now pro baseball isn’t one of those uses.

Photo by Mark Cryan.

RELATED STORIES: Skylands Park sold; baseball still a possibility; New owners: We’ll have baseball in Skylands Park in 2014; Skyland Park debt sold; Atlantic League interested in placing team there; Future of Skylands Park in play; Atlantic League: Big plans for 2014 and beyond; Skylands Park on block; baseball unlikely for 2012; Taxes becoming huge issue for Skylands Park; Skyhawks to go dark?

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