Chattanooga Lookouts Erlanger Park community first mantra

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Rich Mozingo has a humorous streak in him and is in a top-rung role with the Minor League Baseball (MiLB) team Chattanooga Lookouts based in Chattanooga, Tennessee (US).

Rich Mozingo is the President of the Chattanooga Lookouts marking his 32^nd year in professional baseball. Under his leadership the Lookouts have achieved significant milestones including being named the Southern League Organization of the Year and receiving the Don Mincher Award.

In an exclusive exchange with ‘Coliseum’, Rich Mozingo President, Chattanooga Lookouts, US, talks about the Chattanooga Lookouts new ballpark – the Erlanger Park in Chattanooga, Tennessee, US – which opened on April 14th, 2026. He says, “When you start talking about minor league stadiums and minor league cities, when you start talking about building stadiums it’s not about what your players want. It’s about what we are going to do for the community, what’s going to happen in our community to make these things happen. The Erlanger Park is a gathering place for the community and we have also signed Chattanooga’s first Community Benefits Agreement.”
 

Chattanooga Lookouts

The Chattanooga Lookouts are a Minor League Baseball (MiLB) team of the Southern League. They are based in Chattanooga, Tennessee (US) and are named after the nearby Lookout Mountain. The Erlanger Park serves as their home ballpark.
 

Erlanger Park

The Erlanger Park is a baseball park in Chattanooga, Tennessee (US). It is the home of the Minor League Baseball (MiLB) team Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern League. It opened on April 14^th, 2026, and can seat 8,032 people.

Opened on April 14^th, 2026 in the heart of the South Broad District the Erlanger Park blended Chattanooga’s proud industrial legacy with the state-of-the-art amenities to become the region’s primary meeting place. With an abundance of social experiences, family-friendly spaces and the Tennessee Riverwalk greenway running through the venue there is something for everyone at the Erlanger Park.

Remarked Rich Mozingo, “The two billion dollars Erlanger Park sits on a site that was empty for the last 25+ years and it was an old steel mill. We reinvented the entire site and the architecture that was involved in the building was really exciting for us.”
 

A New Era

“The building of the Erlanger Park is a transformative revitalization of the entire South side and there has been literally zero development in the South side of Chattanooga in the last 25+ years. The ballpark is the centerpiece of the entire South Broad District and one thing that is really important for us is that the Erlanger Park is a gathering place for our community.”
 

Multiuse

“We are going to play 70 baseball games in the Erlanger Park in 2026 and we are going to play 70 baseball games in 2027. That leaves 295 days every single year with nothing going on. So, we have built a stadium that can be used the other 295 days a year as well. We have designed the stadium as such that it will abuzz with activities the whole year through. We are going to hold concerts, we are going to do community events, yoga on the field, and marathon. The really cool thing about this ballpark is we boast an architecture that cannot be replicated. We worked on a very small budget.”

“We are going to have small concerts. We will be able to do an 800 percent plated dinner in Erlanger Park. We are going to have roadway lunches and those sorts of things because for us it’s all about volume. We have to continue to row people through the facility and make that work for everybody.”
 

Community Benefits Agreement

He added, “We have also signed Chattanooga’s first Community Benefits Agreement. I know the soccer club here in Nashville signed the very first Community Benefits Agreement ever in the State of Tennessee. We have signed the second in the State of Tennessee and we are excited about the things that we are going to do for our community. Career professional development partnership, partnerships with the local schools, affordable housing are just few of the things that are going into the community benefits and the revitalization plans of the entire South side.”

A Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) is a legally binding contract between a project developer and a coalition of community organizations. It outlines specific, measurable benefits the developer will provide to the local neighborhood in exchange for the community’s support – or non-opposition – for a proposed real estate, industrial, or energy project.
 

Affordable Family-friendly Fun Atmosphere

Mozingo said that the Erlanger Park is wallet-friendly, “We keep going back to affordable because it’s important. We are not playing eight games a year, we are not playing 16 games a year, we are playing 70 games a year. You come out five times and spend 500 dollars than spend 500 dollars at a time. The feeling you live with is very different.”
 

Stealing Ideas

Mozingo bluntly stated, “We stole ideas to build the Erlanger Park. You guys have great ideas and we go in behind you and steal those ideas. We have built two other ballparks. We have taken the ideas from those ballparks. We have been to all the other minor league ballparks in our area, in our region and most of them in the United States of America and we tried to look at the things that made sense for us.”
 

Entertainment Factor

Mozingo observed that in a two-and-a-half hour or maybe a three-hour baseball game there was only “nine minutes of action. We will have to have some other ways to entertain people. There is got to be other ways for people to enjoy baseball and be a part of baseball. If you are going to bring out your family you might want to come out and hang out in the big berm we have on the left field side that will seat about 1,000 people. If you are younger though you might want to come to our bar in the right field and just hang out there with your friends. If you are business-to-business people you might want to take advantage of our 16 luxury suites. People want to gather. They want spaces that are their spaces. We are going to try to hit every single demographic we can across the board. We have an iconic riverwalk that goes through our entire city. The riverwalk on non-gamedays actually go into our ballpark. We are going to have 300 units of residential. In the centerfield we have retail right underneath the office space in the center field area.”
 

Sum-up

 

Experiences

 
Rich Mozingo summed up by stating, “Lastly, it’s about experiences. It’s about experience for the fans. It’s about experience for the community and with 9,000 people rolling into the gate everyday it will open up new opportunities.”

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