Yard Goats Looking at Other Cities for 2017 Season: Sources

The Hartford Yard Goats baseball team is threatening to find a new home for the 2017 season after a promise for a ballpark still hasn't come to fruition, according to letters sent to city officials. 

The team's owner, Josh Solomon, called the development of Dunkin' Donuts Park, with the completion deadline being missed over and over, "intolerable," letters obtained by NBC Connecticut say. 

"The city cannot tell the team when or if the stadium will be completed," Solomon wrote to city officials. "The city appears not to have sufficient monies available to fund the completion of the stadium." 

Solomon said he wants some kind of assurance from the city by December that the ballpark will be completed for the next season, or the team will search for a new place to play next year. 

"Since June 6, 2016, no work of any significance has been performed at the stadium and it now appears that the stadium will not be completed for many months, at minimum," Solomon wrote. 

The Yard Goats' owner said the insurance company for the stadium has made a decision about completion of the stadium, but the city responded, saying the company is still investigating and no decisions have been made.

"To my knowledge Arch Insurance is actively involved in investigating the condition of the Project and negotiating agreements necessary to the resumption and completion of the Hartford Stadium Project," Howard G. Rifkin, of the city's office of the corporation counsel, wrote back to Solomon.

Centerplan, the developer hired to build Dunkin' Donuts stadium, started construction on the stadium in February 2015 with a set completion date of mid-March. After delays came to light in December 2015, a new date of May 17 was set in January, but Centerplan did not meet that date and the city has since invoked the $46 million insurance policy on the project and fired the developer.

Centerplan has also filed a complaint, looking for an injunction against the city, claiming it didn’t use the proper dispute resolution channels laid out in their joint agreement before the city fired them.

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