Buildings
As Baseball Season Opens, New Stadiums are Unveiled
(archrecord.construction.com - 04/27/2006)
By Kevin
Lerner
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Click here for slideshow.
All images courtesy HOK Sport
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New York
The New York Mets announced earlier
this month that Shea Stadium will be demolished and a new
ballpark, designed by HOK Sport, will replace it. Following
recent trends in ballpark design, the stadium will evoke early
20th-century ballparks and will be dedicated to baseball.
The new ballpark will be smaller than Shea, reducing seating
from about 57,000 to about 45,000. The stadium will also have
58 luxury suites; Shea currently has 45.
The new ballpark is meant to evoke memories
of Ebbets Field, the former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers,
particularly through an entry rotunda that will serve as the
main entrance to the new park. Exposed steel girders will
also remind Mets fans of the bridges that bring them to Queens.
Besides steel, the main building materials will be limestone,
granite, brick, and cast-stone.
The new Mets stadium is not expected
to raise much community opposition, since it will be built
on land already being used for parking lots Hunt-Bovis, a
joint venture of Hunt Construction Group and Bovis Lend Lease,
will supervise construction. The Mets will pay about $550
million; New York City will pay out approximately $90 million
in capital funds, and New York State will give the team about
$75 million in rent credits. The Mets plan to break ground
this spring and open for the 2009 season.
Washington, D.C.
Critics and fans have given mixed reviews
to plans for the Washington Nationals’ new ballpark,
designed by HOK Sport and the Washington firm Devrouax-Purnell
Architects. The 41,000-seat stadium will feature large expanses
of glass, and views of the U.S. Capitol beyond the outfield
fences. The new park will be situated on the Anacostia River
in southeast Washington, and replace the aging RFK stadium,
the Nationals’ temporary home.
Some critics have suggested that the
new stadium is too bland, but part of this may stem from the
fact that Major League Baseball (MLB) still owns the team,
a year after moving it from Montreal. MLB is expected to sell
the team to a new ownership group this spring or summer, and
the new owners may change the design.
The District of Columbia will pay about
$320 million toward the stadium’s construction, with
an additional $20 million coming from MLB. Bob DuPuy, the
chief operating officer of MLB told the Associated Press,
“Of course, if changes are made at the new owner's request
and they add to the costs, it would be the new owner's responsibility.”
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