Another Atlanta milestone reached

Today marks another milestone. This afternoon, the Atlanta Braves will play their last game at Turner Field against the Detroit Tigers. We won’t see the team play again until April 14, 2017, when they meet the San Diego Padres in their new home, SunTrust Park, 15 miles north up Interstate 75.

It’s always with a heavy dose of nostalgia when a team leaves a place that it’s called home, in this case, Turner Field, since 1997. The same applied, possibly to a lesser degree, when the team moved into Turner Field where the parking lot was on the site of the now gone Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. And while the new stadium shifted slightly to the south the names — Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Chipper Jones, Javy Lopez and Fred McGriff made the transition seem painless. Winning, had a lot to do with easing the nostalgia, too.

But the one thing about Atlanta that’s constant is change. Turner Field could hardly be called obsolete. Built as the Centennial Olympic Stadium for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the stadium is barely out of its teenage years. In comparison, Dodger Stadium is 54 years old. Further down the coast in San Diego, the Padres are playing in 12-year-old Petco Park, but they moved from 49-year-old Qualcomm Park where they shared the field with the Chargers

And it’s not just Atlanta’s baseball teams that trade in stadiums on a regular basis. The Atlanta Hawks home floor is Philips Arena. It opened in 1999 replacing the 25-year-old Omni. The Atlanta Falcons will leave the 24-year-old Georgia Dome for the $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium that will seat 75,000 well-heeled fans.

Since the age of the facilities isn’t the issue, what is? Money, money, money. The Braves are moving because the demographics surrounding their new stadium are more conducive to their business model than Turner Field. As far as the Hawks and Falcons are concerned, watching the game is only part of the sale. Modern stadiums have to be part gourmet restaurant, amusement park, interactive experience, sports bar — and don’t forget the private luxury boxes that no Fortune 500 company, which Atlanta is full of, would want to be without.

So put away your longing for the good old days. There will never be another Phil Niekro or Hank Aaron. The days of Steve Bartkowski, William Andrews and Jessie Tuggle are gone. We will never see Dominique Wilkins stretch his 6-foot-8-inch frame toward the basket for a thundering dunk again. And after today, Turner Field is no longer the home of the Braves.

This story was originally published October 1, 2016 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Another Atlanta milestone reached."