Tinker Field - City

At a City Council workshop yesterday Orlando Venues Director Allen Johnson let the City Council know that the Historic Tinker Field would need to be relocated due to the Citrus Bowl reconstruction.

The Citrus Bowl footprint will be growing and will take out about 80 feet from right field and part of center field from Tinker Filed which is located south of the Citrus Bowl.

The 80 feet reduction makes it too small for any sort of baseball play.

This combined with the age and need for Tinker Field repairs causes City staff to recommend relocating Tinker Field to the current McCraken Field site which is just south of Tinker.

Johnson said the new field would not be “just a band-aid.”

The new  filed would be built with:

  • Covered seating for 500
  • An operations building with concessions, storage and restrooms
  • New infield playing surface
  • New fencing
  • New scoreboard
  • New lighting

In the presentation the new field was called Tinker-McCraken Field although Commissioner Robert Stuart suggested possibly making it Tinker Filed at McCraken park.

Tinker Field is currently on the National Register of Historical Places. Commissioner Patty Sheehan mentioned that she would like to ensure that the namesake, Joe Tinker [Wikipedia], is recognized at the new field possibly with a small museum.

“I hate to take something historic and move it but if were going to have to do that, why not really talk about the history and celebrate and give something back to the community,” she said at the workshop.

Total construction is estimated to cost around $3 million dollars.

Rebecca Sutton, Chief Financial Officer for the City, stated that the construction could be paid for by money from the Amway Center Infrastructure Account. This money is from City owned land where the old Amway Arena was.

Click here for details on the Citrus Bowl Reconstruction >>

Here’s a look at the diagram showing how the new Citrus Bowl will go into Tinker Field and a draft drawing of the new Tinker-McCraken Field:Tinker Layout

New Tinker McCraken Field

Photos and renderings courtesy City of Orlando.

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  1. They did that, Thomas. It’s called Sunrail. Now please follow this with a book about how pointless Sunrail is, because I’m sure that’s coming next.

  2. I know that. our so called leaders however promote spending any and all tax dollars to serve a small part of the community. how about promoting a transit system to handle tourists over a soccer stadium in a impoverished neighborhood? These projects are nothing more than the 7 dwarfs downtown feathering their resumes.

  3. TDD dollars are tax dollars from the tourism tax and have to be spent on activities that promote tourism. They are not there to benefit all tax payers but to promote tourism. Projects end up being venues and convention centers. And changing the TDD designation is a state issue.

  4. Infrastructure, road improvement, etc. these “amenities” serve only a small portion of the populus where as the tax dollar expenditures should benefit all tax payers.

  5. Super. We’re paying for the reconstruction of the Citrus Bowl that has only a handful of events every year, and now we’re dumping money into even more construction with minor impact on the wider community.