Lower-deck benches are gone. Concession stands have been gutted. A former restaurant is being transformed into a merchandise store. The Diamond is undergoing unprecedented renovation. Before the Class AA Richmond Flying Squirrels open their home schedule April 15, 3,200 dark green box seats will be fitted into the lower bowl, which had aluminum benches and backrests.

Chuck Domino, the chief executive manager of Richmond’s Class AA franchise, has been in the baseball industry for nearly 30 years. One thing struck him when he laid eyes on The Diamond. “This stadium was built upside down,“ Domino said. About 8,800 of the facility’s 12,134 seats are in the upper deck.

The sign outside The Diamond still proclaims “Home of the Richmond Braves,“ but Richmond and its 24-year-old stadium will have a new professional baseball team beginning next spring.

About 18 months after the Atlanta Braves announced they were relocating their Class AAA franchise to Gwinnett County, Ga., Richmond could acquire a new professional baseball franchise this week. Eastern League President Joe McEacharn set Saturday, Aug. 1 as the deadline for identification of which of the league’s 12 Class AA franchises will relocate to Richmond next season.

Professional baseball won’t return to Richmond until next year, but its presence apparently will be noticeable starting next month. Minor League Baseball and the Eastern League plan to assign a Class AA franchise to Richmond before Aug. 1. When that happens, “somebody is going to go in there and somebody is going to take Richmond by storm,“ Joe McEacharn, the Eastern League president, said yesterday.

The ownership group moving a Class AA baseball franchise to Richmond next season will commit more than $1 million for short-term improvements to The Diamond, the Eastern League president said yesterday. “We want to bring a first-class product to Richmond,“ Joe McEacharn said. “We are going to show our good faith not only by coming with a team, but we are going to substantially upgrade the product for the short term.“

The chairman of the Richmond Metropolitan Authority’s board of directors and the RMA’s general manager said yesterday that they find a $28 million transformation plan for The Diamond intriguing and worthy of evaluation. James L. Jenkins, the chairman, and Mike Berry, the GM, added that they also find the Opening Day Partners proposal somewhat familiar. The RMA, which owns and operates The Diamond, and the Atlanta Braves seemed set in 2004 to proceed with a major facility renovation that Berry now sees as comparable in some respects to the $28 million plan ODP released yesterday.

Those involved in plans to bring a professional baseball franchise to Virginia’s capital recognize the Richmond area as a quality minor-league market. Is it? “I’ve had conversations with the executives of Minor League Baseball as well as the [Class AA] Eastern League, all of whom suggest that Richmond is a very desirable location for professional baseball, and that a team would be successful here,“ said Mike Berry, general manager of the Richmond Metropolitan Authority, which owns and operates The Diamond.

There is the urban-renewal angle of the Shockoe Center proposal. There is the familiar angle of The Boulevard. And there is the angle that Mike Berry hopes ultimately tops the list: What’s the best place for baseball in Richmond?

The baseball-and-fireworks package at The Diamond could continue in early July, though Richmond doesn’t have a professional baseball team this season. Opening Day Partners, a Maryland-based ballpark developer and operator, wants to bring a baseball-playing team of current and former military personnel to Richmond for an exhibition Friday, July 3, with fireworks to follow.

Efforts to give Richmond’s suburbs a bigger say in the operation of regional toll roads and parking lots are dead for the year.