KANNAPOLIS — Once a place where fans gathered to watch baseball, the Intimidators Stadium in Kannapolis now looks like a scene from a post-apocalyptic world in which zombies don’t care much about the American pastime.

The former home of the minor league team has become the bizarro version of Kannapolis’ new downtown baseball stadium where the city’s rebranded Cannon Ballers are currently playing their second season.

Almost all the windows of the old stadium are broken. The outfield has become a real field where shrubs and weeds are starting to grow several feet tall. All no trespassing signs have been ignored and items left behind are spread out in the lobby.

Moose Road Stadium won’t look dead for long. Concord-based Fortius Capital Partners is preparing to demolish the ballpark once it completes the purchase of the property from the city later this month.

“I know there is no future use for the building, but it’s sad to see it in its current state and I’ll be the first to admit that,” said Dave Davis, development manager at Fortius Capital Partners. “We are excited to present the next chapter of this story soon.”

In place of the former ball diamond, Fortius will build the Lakeshore Corporate Park. The company plans to construct three speculative buildings ranging in size from 128,000 to 295,000 square feet for a total of 702,000 square feet of retail space. According to the Fortius website, the “concrete tilt buildings will have up to 36′ of clear height, numerous platform-height doors, professional storefronts and interstate visibility – all within a park.” The company will invest more than $50 million in the development.

“We’re really excited to be a part of this project and to move it forward,” said Harris Morrison, chief executive of Fortius. “We are thrilled to be part of the renovation of such an important part of the Kannapolis community. We think this will attract all different types of good industry that will create jobs in the area and increase the local tax base.

The buildings will be marketed to companies in the manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, logistics and light assembly sectors.

“We’re designing the park with the ability to market it to a wide range of prospects,” Davis said.

Three acres of the site will be reserved for the city to build a fire department, but no official timetable has been set for this project.

The industrial park is a prime location due to its proximity to exit 63 on I-85. Large plots adjacent to the freeway are becoming increasingly scarce as companies continue to foreclose on land in Rowan County and the greater Charlotte area.

“The market is scrambling for additional space and it’s just trying to find the land available to deliver this type of product,” Davis said. “The rings are moving further and further away from Charlotte itself. Charlotte’s overall market growth is such a driving force.

A rendering of what a building at Lakeshore Corporate Park might look like.

Kannapolis City Council unanimously approved the sale of the property to Fortius for $3 million in May last year. Since then, Davis said the company has done its due diligence to survey the site for any potential impediments to construction. Planning is especially important for this project, Davis said, because the property is next to Fisher Lake, a protected water reservoir.

“It’s technically in a critical watershed, which puts a certain set of additional restrictions on how the property can be used and what percentage of impervious land is available, so we have to work within that as well,” Davis said. “It takes a lot of coordination and continuous effort.”

The built-up area of ​​the industrial park will comprise just over 33 acres of the 55-acre site.

While the stadium awaits its future, vandals have trashed its offices and defaced the walls with spray paint. The incident is one of the reasons Rowan-Cabarrus Community College has moved its truck driving lessons from the vacant stadium car park to West End Plaza in Salisbury.

Davis said he expects the demolition process to begin within the next 45 days. He acknowledges that a baseball stadium will prove to be a “unique animal” to be demolished. Once the site has been cleared and leveled, construction work on the three speculative buildings will begin. All three will be built in a single phase.

“We’ll have a very active site through next summer,” Davis said.

Fortius plans to deliver the buildings by summer 2023, but Davis said that’s more of a moving target due to ongoing supply chain disruptions and the unpredictability of mother nature.

When the project is complete, Davis said the “world-class” business park will be an asset to the community.

“What we strive to do is help our community thrive,” Davis said. “We are adding to the tax base and we hope to add economic generators and job generators and that is of utmost importance to us.”