Moncton’s The Dugout Reopens In Larger, Downtown Space
MONCTON – It took a few innings, but Moncton’s sole indoor batting facility has reopened even deeper downtown and is once again ready to play ball.
Kelly Snowdon, the CEO and founder of The Dugout, said that her sports training facility’s new location in the core of the city, at 467 Main Street, is the ideal spot to accommodate its intense growth since opening in 2022.
“A good thing about this spot is that we’re at a prime location. People from Riverview can come up off the bridge, Dieppe and Shediac? Hop off the highway,” she said.
The Dugout closed for five months after its lease expired last year at its previous, 725 Champlain Street location. It took a bit of searching to find a landlord comfortable renting out space for a business that involves flying projectiles.
However, after asking her real estate agent about the commercial property across the street from the police station, near the Rodd Moncton and Bore Park that’s also home to Spin It Records and Video, Snowdon said she got lucky and found a landlord easygoing enough to accommodate The Dugout.
“We take the most precaution with backstops and tarps, to make sure there’s no damage to the building,” she said.
Snowdon said heavy traffic to The Dugout’s previous home on Champlain was all the indication she needed that the business had to grow.
“We just had to find the building that would allow us to have a space to do so. We’re happy it’s growing so fast,” she said.
In moving westward into Moncton’s downtown core, the Dugout swapped out a 2,100-square-foot space for two floors, boasting 2,100 square feet on the ground and 1,500 square feet on the second floor.
Snowdon, who grew up playing provincial orthodox fast-pitch and softball, launched The Dugout after traumatic mental health issues from a previous profession led her to pivot into entrepreneurship.
“I knew that in order to work again, I had to be able to work for myself, because I wouldn’t be able to work for someone else until I healed fully,” she said.
“My boyfriend had an idea of opening up a batting cage. I liked the idea and decided I wanted to do that. If I could do it for free, I would – I just love helping and coaching, because I was an athlete growing up It makes me happy that I can see people achieve their goals.”
Strong Demand
To paint a picture of how badly a batting cage was needed in Greater Moncton, Snowdon gave some numbers: more than 1,500 baseball players and 88 slow-pitch teams in the city and surrounding area were looking for somewhere to practice and hone their skills, and the nearest batting cage facility, until The Dugout opened, was The Warehouse in Lower Sackville, N.S.
While business gets brisk with the weather, Snowdon said the facility will see plenty of activity throughout the year, with coaching one-on-ones, development sessions every Sunday, and plans in the works to hold training camps this coming summer.
The Dugout offers pitching machines but also provides opportunities to hone batting form with tees.
“A lot of athletes find that pitching machines ruin their timing, so we rely on a lot of tee-work,” Snowdon said.
The facility has two tunnels on the ground floor, measuring 60 feet and 43 feet, side by side.
Upstairs is devoted to a gym, a pitching mechanics area with a 49-foot tunnel and portable pitching mounds and backstop – and supplies for synthetic ice.
The Dugout sees a lot of walk-in traffic in addition to scheduled sessions, and foot traffic varies between 10 and 20 people per day.
While the Dugout just reopened, Snowdon is already planning an expansion – albeit one that’s a few years out.
“We’re hoping we can get multiple tunnels open, but again, we’re starting slow, because we don’t want to go all-out and all of a sudden, not be able to afford the bills and have to close down,” she said.
“We want to be able to have a spot like this available for the athletes, and having it here we can grow as needed. I’m just happy to be able to start working again and with the kids, because this is my passion.”
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].