Richmond Flying Squirrels’ new stadium will be CarMax Park

With confetti flying and a DJ playing walk-up music for Richmond’s mayor and other luminaries, the Richmond Flying Squirrels announced Wednesday that Fortune 500 company CarMax will be naming sponsor for the Squirrels’ new ballpark starting with the 2026 season. The replacement for the Richmond Diamond will be known as CarMax Park, officials with the Double-A Minor League Baseball team revealed.

Although Squirrels President and Managing Partner Lou DiBella said that the deal with CarMax had been signed several months ago, few other details were revealed about the transaction, including the amount CarMax agreed to pay and how long the sponsorship will last.

“We haven’t disclosed the financial conditions for the contract, but what I will tell you is, we’re super thrilled to be able to ensure that the Squirrels are going to be here for a very long time,” CarMax President and CEO Bill Nash said following Wednesday’s news conference held at the Bon Secours Training Center, the former training location for the Washington Commanders. Nash also declined to say how long the naming rights will continue, but added, “We’re involved with them for a very long time in the future.”

In August, the Richmond Economic Development Authority’s board approved a 30-year lease and stadium development agreement between the EDA and the Flying Squirrels, in which the Squirrels will pay $3.2 million in annual rent for the next 10 years, with the rates decreasing after that point.

The mood Wednesday was celebratory, with former Squirrels CEO and current senior adviser Todd “Parney” Parnell serving as emcee and a crowd of fans, officials and others receiving hand towels printed with “CarMax Park.” Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, who shepherded the $2.4 billion Diamond District redevelopment project centered around the new baseball stadium, called the corporate sponsorship a “big freakin’ deal.”

The multiuse Diamond District project is planned to include 2,800 residential units, 935,000 square feet of office space and 195,000 square feet of retail and community space. A team known as Diamond District Partners is developing the project; it includes Richmond-based Thalhimer Realty Partners, Chicago-based Loop Capital, Pennrose, Capstone Development and multiple Virginia-based partners.

During the event, Parnell revealed new renderings of CarMax Park, which is expected to be finished by spring 2026; a ceremonial groundbreaking will take place Friday.

DiBella said that there will be several outdoor areas around the field in CarMax Park, with capacity for about 2,000 people standing, and 8,000 fixed seats. The venue also will host concerts and comedians when baseball games aren’t scheduled, and it will have indoor areas that can be used for community events, DiBella said, calling the park “a great social center for the community” that will have programming year-round, instead of just during baseball season.

But the park’s prospects weren’t always so sunny, as DiBella had sounded a warning bell in 2023 that he wasn’t sure that the new stadium — built to meet Major League Baseball’s requirements for all Minor League facilities — would be finished in time for the spring 2025 deadline, and could mean the departure of the team from Richmond.

Ultimately, the city received a one-year extension from MLB to finish the new stadium by 2026, which is expected to cost approximately $110 million and will be funded with $170 million in general obligation bonds issued by the city.

Speaking at the news conference, DiBella acknowledged the long wait for a new stadium, which dates back to 2010, the Squirrels’ debut season in Richmond, when city officials first promised to build a ballpark to replace the nearly 40-year-old Diamond that previously was home to the Richmond Braves Triple-A team.

Although CarMax’s involvement will not influence the funding structure for the stadium, its investment will be considered part of the team’s revenue stream, which is important, as the Squirrels’ rent has risen every year since the team has played in Richmond and is among the highest rents for any Minor League team, DiBella said.

On stage Wednesday, DiBella called the groundbreaking and pending start of construction “a miracle. … Fifteen years and something like $3 million in legal fees and multimillion dollars in consultancy fees, and I can’t tell you how many hours of work that got thrown away … during different [city] administrations. Frankly, an awful lot of meetings where you didn’t feel like there was honestly a commitment. I gotta say this, you gotta give credit to the people that got it done, and the people that got it done were this city council, this administration and the community leaders that are now our friends.”

In particular, DiBella cited Stoney and Richmond Chief Administrative Officer Lincoln Saunders for their roles in moving the stadium process forward, noting that “you guys got ‘MFed’ enough by me. Lincoln and I, it was so tense with us for so long,” DiBella said, “but I never doubted [Saunders’] commitment to this day. The biggest winners today are the citizens of Richmond.”

Stoney, a two-term mayor who is running for the Democratic nomination for Virginia lieutenant governor, noted that “15 years ago, the city made a promise to the Flying Squirrels, and fast-forward to 2024, we are keeping our promise, and with the 30-year lease, with the CarMax partnership, I am proud to say that the Squirrels are here to stay.”

The event was a bright spot for Stoney and Saunders, a friend of the mayor appointed as the city’s CAO in 2020, who have come under fire lately after reports in the Richmond Times-Dispatch revealed alleged misuse of procurement credit cards by some city officials, including former spokesperson Petula Burks, and a lack of transparency and timeliness in answering Freedom of Information Act requests for city documents.

There are still a few bumps in the road on the way to seeing the Diamond District become reality, including a $40 million lawsuit among current and former partners in the joint development team building the Diamond District, but DiBella said that he doesn’t expect the lawsuit to cause a delay in building the stadium, the construction of which the Squirrels team is overseeing. “It better not,” he said, laughing. “But no, I don’t believe it [will].”

Peter Woodfork, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of minor league operations and development, said that beyond providing a new stadium with amenities for fans, the replacement of the Diamond is also an upgrade for players and others who work for the team. “This is an extremely important step for all of us … to have a facility that young men and women who work in baseball operations that allows them to do their job, anything from clubhouses to female facilities to batting cages,” he said.

Although Woodfork emphasized that “every expectation” is that the new ballpark will be open for 2026’s baseball season, “if something negative happened, we’d have to regroup on our side.”