Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park, also known as RCGT Park is a baseball stadium in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with a seating capacity of 10,332. The stadium is located in the city's east end near the interchange of Queensway and Vanier Parkway. It has been used for minor-league professional baseball and music concerts since 1993.HistoryThe stadium was built to house the Ottawa Lynx of the International League and opened prior to the 1993 season. In its first season, the Lynx sold out 43 games and set an International League attendance record by averaging 9,772 fans per game. However, annual attendance steadily declined from there, except for a modest increase in 2001. By 2006, Ottawa had the lowest average attendance in the league. The Lynx relocated after the 2007 season.After the departure of the Lynx, the City of Ottawa considered other proposals for the site but kept the stadium as a baseball facility for the following season. Among the proposals rejected by the city in 2007 were: conversion of the stadium into the "Steelback Centre", a variable-use complex that could host 25,000 for concerts and 15,000 for sporting events as proposed by Frank D'Angelo of Steelback Brewery; replacement of the stadium by a casino; replacement of the stadium with a larger Ottawa Congress Centre; redevelopment of the site as conventional retail or office space. A new team, the Ottawa Rapidz of the Can-Am League, was established in December 2007 and began to play in 2008. Despite attracting higher attendance than the Lynx in its final season, the Rapidz declared bankruptcy on September 29, 2009. A new team, the Voyageurs, was announced by the Can-Am league for the 2009 season. However, the league was faced with a lack of prospective owners for the team and with declining economic conditions and disbanded the Voyageurs in March 2009.
