Columbus | Muscogee: A Region Revived

Conveying Excitement: Brian Sillitto, vice president, partnership and engagement for the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Photo credit: Nathan LeDuc

Here’s the short version of the story of Columbus: It’s a former mill town that is home to corporate heavy hitters, institutions of higher education and a U.S. Army base that dates back to 1918. But the longer, unabridged version is more interesting, closer to a New York Times bestseller that tells a tale of revival, renewal and rebirth. As in old times, the waters of the Chattahoochee River are driving economic prosperity, and the cheers of baseball fans can once more be heard at the historic Golden Park, which has been renovated and renamed Synovus Park.

The banks of the Chattahoochee River, once lined with defunct cotton and textile mills, today bustle with new parks, trails, housing, hotels, corporate headquarters and a plethora of new retail, entertainment and dining options. And now it is also home to Synovus Park, the new home of the Atlanta Braves’ Double-A affiliate, the Columbus Clingstones. On April 15 Clingstones righthander Blake Burkhalter threw the first pitch at the new ballpark, as the Clingstones took on the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, the Double-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins.

“Almost everybody I talk to is getting fired up about the opportunity to have baseball back in Columbus,” says Mayor B.H. “Skip” Henderson. “I already bought season tickets, and we’re ready for some Clingstones baseball.”

The opening six-game series for the inaugural season of the Clingstones occurred April 15-20. The first 3,000 fans to the ballpark on opening day received a commemorative ticket, and a post-game fireworks show celebrated the first home game in franchise history.

Grand Project: Columbus Clingtones’ General Manager Pete Laven. Photo credit: contributed

“There are no bad seats and no bad sightlines at Synovus Park,” says Clingstones’ General Manager Pete Laven. “This project [may be] grand in a lot of ways, [but it] is not going to be a big vast area. It’s an intimate stadium ballpark that people will remember from their youth or whenever they last frequented the ballpark.”

Formerly the Mississippi Braves, the Clingstones represent the first time all four affiliates of a Major League Baseball team will reside in the same state, according to Laven. The Braves affiliates in Georgia are the Augusta Green Jackets, the Rome Emperors, the Columbus Clingstones and the Gwinnett Stripers, ranging from “Low-A in Augusta to High-A, which is [in] Rome. And then every team has one Double-A team, that’s Columbus, and one Triple-A team, which in the Braves case, is in Gwinnett,” Laven says.

“No other Major League team can say that,” he says. “I think there’s going to be three [other] new stadiums [nationally] across Minor League Baseball [in] 2025, but none with a story as good as Synovus Park.”

While the call, “Peanuts, get your peanuts here,” has been absent at the park for quite some time, Columbus has quite a history when it comes to baseball. Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle all once played at the historic 3,500-seat stadium. Golden Park dates back to 1926. It was refurbished in 1996 ahead of the Olympic Games hosted by Atlanta and served as the venue for women’s fast-pitch softball.

Fired Up: Fans greet the Columbus Clingstones players as they enter the field. Photo credit: contributed

“Like a lot of things at the stadium, we’re going to try and meld the old with the new,” Laven says. “The red brick on the concourse is still there and we’re keeping three arches left over from Olympics. We want to pay [homage] to the history of Golden Park.”

If you’re wondering what a clingstone is, you’re not alone. According to the mayor, he received several “quizzical looks” upon announcement of the team’s name. A clingstone is a type of peach where the flesh “clings” to the pit making it difficult to remove.

“After the name was selected, then came choosing the mascot, which we knew would be a peachy character,” Laven says. “Fuzzy the mascot was officially born [Feb. 7], and he’s been out and about throwing first pitches at Little League games, appearing at Read Across America events at local elementary schools, and he attended a Gwinnett [Stripers] Fan Fest event.”

Although the tight timeline between when the franchise was awarded and opening day precluded community participation in picking the team’s name, a contest was held to name the mascot. Fans chose Fuzzy over three other options: Pit, Stoney and Cobbler.

“Players on the Clingstones are at the make-or-break level,” Laven says. “They have an excellent shot to make their lifelong dreams to play in the big show come true. We encourage everyone to come out because you never know when you’re going to see a future Hall of Famer come through. We’ll have 69 home games, and we’ll try to make it a fun, fresh experience whether it’s on Opening Day or a Tuesday night in July.”

While some folks may have raised an eyebrow at the team’s name, according to Brian Sillitto, vice president, partnership and engagement for the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce, besides good alliteration, the name Columbus Clingstones is right in line with those of other Minor League teams.

“People asked, ‘Why can’t they just call it the Braves?’” Sillitto says, “but Minor League Baseball is all about the merchandising opportunities. Huntsville is the Rocket City Trash Pandas, and their mascot is a racoon coming out of a garbage can with a rocket blast. And it’s one of the best sellers of Minor League merchandise. It’s supposed to be fun and have a little bit of flair to it.”

Since peaches are a popular symbol of the state, the name and the mascot for the Columbus Clingstones just makes sense, Sillitto says.

“Georgia is known as the Peach State; the lottery uses it [as a logo], the state uses it,” he says. “No, we don’t grow peaches in Columbus, but they don’t grow bananas in Savannah,” he says, referring to the Savannah Bananas, a baseball exhibition team.

During this year’s state legislative session, Sillitto says city officials presented all House and Senate members with Columbus Clingstones inaugural hats to convey the excitement of Braves baseball coming to the city.

“Baseball is the country’s national pastime and continues to be a driver of the economy in certain circles,” he says. “If this was the Single-A Milwaukee Brewers, it wouldn’t be happening. But because it’s Braves Double-A, it will attract fans not only in the region, but I can see folks coming from as far north as Newnan and as far south as Albany. I think folks will be coming from all over. It’s a catalyst for the economy, and the ripple effect of money spent on things like food, gas and hotels will be felt throughout the city and frankly, throughout the region.”

A Nice Place to Visit

Focused on Visitors: Ashley Woitena, president and CEO of VisitColumbusGA at The Columbus Museum. Photo credit: Nathan LeDuc

The addition of Braves baseball will surely add to the more than 2 million visitors to the Fountain City recorded in fiscal year 2024, according to Ashley Woitena, the new president and CEO of VisitColumbusGA.

“Visitor spending was $377 million, and we’re hoping with all the new product development like the Columbus Clingstones … we’ll see those numbers continue to rise,” she says. “The tourism industry employs 4,491 people with a payroll of over $151 million.”

Additional assets that make Columbus a premiere destination in the Southeast are a multitude of museums, including The Columbus Museum, the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center, the National Civil War Museum, the Ma Rainey House and Blues Museum and the Columbus Collective Museums, a collection of eight museums, including the Lunch Box Museum, the Tom Huston Peanut Museum and the Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame.

World Famous: Allen Woodall is the founder and curator of The Lunch Box Museum, which is part of the Columbus Collective Museums. Photo credit: contributed

In January, The Columbus Museum landed in the top spot on the USA Today 10BEST “Best New Museum (2024)” ranking. The museum reopened in May 2024 after an 18-month, $28.5 million renovation. In February, the newspaper ranked the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center No. 1 in its “Best Free Museum (2025)” top 10 list.

“We’re really focused on bringing that visitor [who] could be a potential resident or new business [owner],” Woitena says.

New Construction

While there’s a lot to see and do while visiting Columbus these days, investment in public infrastructure is at an all-time high.

Construction of a new $210 million judicial center is underway, and once complete, the 342,000-square-foot building will house 14 courtrooms and space for four more.

Expensive Endeavor: Rendering of a new $210 million judicial center, which is expected to open next year. Photo credit: contributed

“The new judicial building is on budget and on time,” the mayor says. “It’s the biggest endeavor we’ve ever taken on and certainly the most expensive.”

Funded mostly by a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), the new judicial center is expected to open next year, with demolition of the existing Columbus Government Center tower expected in 2027, according to Henderson. The center will be home to superior court, state court, probate court, municipal/magistrate court, juvenile court, accountability court, district attorney’s office, solicitor general’s office, public defender, clerk of superior/state court and clerk of municipal court and will include a jury pool room, law library and sheriff’s security office.

Meanwhile, City Hall operations, including the mayor’s office, parks and recreation, finance and IT, previously was relocated from the government center tower to the old CB&T/Synovus bank buildings, Henderson says.

He says the cost to purchase and renovate the old bank building was $20 million less than if the city had added City Hall operations to the new judicial building or built a new space. While he admits the former City Hall tower should have lasted longer than 50 years, he says, “we had some safety issues, and we needed to upgrade the facilities [where] the city was operating in order to provide a safe environment for the residents to visit.”

According to Henderson, in addition to the cash generated by the SPLOST for the new judicial center and other capital needs, voters also approved a Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) to fund road improvements.

“We have probably around $1.3 to $1.5 billion in capital projects completed or on the way,” he says. “You can’t go to any area in this community and not find something under construction.”

Impressive Space: The city spent $950,000 on a new emergency operations center, which is four times bigger than the previous one. Photo credit: contributed

A new $4.5 million fire station is under construction and the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office also boasts a new $16 million headquarters. Another $950,000 has been spent to upgrade a space inside the new City Hall for a new and improved emergency operations center, according to Chance Corbett, director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for the Columbus Consolidated Government.

“The emergency operations center is set up so we can handle the smallest of events or the largest of disasters,” says Corbett. “Our new space is probably four times bigger than the space we had before. It’s an impressive space that has a lot more room for bringing people in to operate.”

Corbett says 50 people can “fit comfortably” in the new space and have a good view of all the televisions and video boards being used to monitor a situation. There’s also an adjacent conference room with 14 chairs around a table and more chairs lining the walls.

“The biggest job is to manage an incident larger than just the typical incident,” he says. “The incident has to be large enough that it starts taxing the resources of the city and county because we’re consolidated.” The city and Muscogee County merged on Jan. 1, 1971, becoming Georgia’s first consolidated government.

“The people that would typically be in here would be the decision makers,” Corbett says, “so there’s zero delay and it really puts us in a lot better place to respond.”

Tranformational Project: Bill Tustin, chief operating officer at Piedmont Columbus Midtown Campus, at the new Bill and Olivia Amos Children’s Hospital. Photo credit: Nathan LeDuc

Piedmont Columbus Regional is also responding to the needs of those they serve in a big way. On Oct. 14, the healthcare system opened the Bill and Olivia Amos Children’s Hospital, the only freestanding children’s hospital in the region.

“The vision is [that] this becomes a regional referral center for our most precious patients,” says Bill Tustin, chief operating officer of Piedmont Columbus’ Midtown Campus. “We’re not trying to be CHOA [Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta]. We really feel strongly that when kids get sick the last thing a parent wants to do, and I am a parent of three, is travel. This is a dedicated space to take care of just kids.”

The five-story children’s hospital contains a 30-bed pediatric inpatient unit focused on the healthcare needs of children from birth to age 18. The 77,137- square-foot facility includes isolation and behavioral safe rooms, a pediatric intensive care unit and pediatric intermediate care.

Pediatric Healthcare: A patient and medical workers at the Bill and Olivia Amos Children’s Hospital. Photo credit: contributed

“It’s a beautiful building,” Tustin says. “As we went through the planning process, we engaged the folks that work with our kids and [even talked to] some kids, as well. The hospital is not for adults, and it doesn’t look like it’s for adults.”

The $28 million children’s hospital has a Chattahoochee River theme in the lobby, according to Tustin, and local artists were commissioned to help create the space. Each floor features a theme based on an animal you might find in the region. There’s also an interactive video wall, playroom and outdoor garden space.

“We hope you never need it, but we’re here, if you do,” he says. “This is a transformational project for our organization and most importantly, for our community and the patients we serve.”

There’s another transformational project underway in the region, but this initiative seeks to shape the future capabilities of the U.S. Army. The Maneuver Innovation Lab on Fort Benning, which opened in February, allows Army warfighters and research partners to learn, innovate, build and explore new ideas to solve tactical problems through “bottom-up innovation,” meaning ideas originate from people at all levels.

The MIL is the first-of-its-kind opened on a U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command installation and serves as a collaborative hub that brings together soldiers, academics and industry leaders to drive innovation and modernization. The innovation lab is a partnership between Fort Benning’s Maneuver Battle Lab, the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, the Civil-Military Innovation Institute and Columbus State University.

Solving Tactical Problems: The Maneuver Innovation Lab at Fort Benning opened in February 2025. Photo credit: U.S. Army photo by Joey Rhodes II

“These young smart soldiers are technically savvy, and the thought is, what if the soldiers see a problem and they want to solve it,” says Chris Willis, director of the Maneuver Battle Lab.

“If a soldier says, ‘I think I can build a better drone than the Army’s providing me,’ they partner with the MIL to design [a prototype], 3D-print that capability, then the soldier can experiment with it and improve it,” he says. “The soldiers provide back to the Army any potential solution they’ve identified. It allows us to shorten the amount of time from idea to solution. Traditionally, one of the problems is the time it takes to adapt.”

At its core, the MIL is designed to develop unique solutions for unit-defined problems, enabling the Army to adapt as quickly as possible against future threats, Willis says.

Between the technological advances on the military base, a plethora of capital projects and all the excitement surrounding baseball, you might say the resurgence of Columbus and Muscogee County is a tale for the ages.