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Unrealized Stadiums


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1 hour ago, Cosmic said:

635763379275192756-Blueprints0jpg.jpg

 

This is a proposed Bills stadium from 1970 that reportedly would have also hosted baseball. I don’t know if they ever actually paid, but the county had a $60M lawsuit judgment against them at one point for backing out of an agreement to build. This was in a town east of the city instead of the site south of the city that we ended up getting. As a point on a map, it would have been nice for it to be closer to Rochester and Syracuse, but I don’t see how the actual infrastructure around this stadium would be anything near what we ended up with.

 

I heard about that. It was supposed to be in Lancaster:

 

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/buffalo/news/2015/08/27/decades-old-blueprints-for-proposed-bills-dome-stadium-in-lancaster-on-display

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On 2/12/2019 at 1:43 PM, the admiral said:

I remember reading one of those ESPN sports almanacs in 2002 that said the Devils were moving to Hoboken. I looked it up the other day and yeah, they were going to build a new arena, privately funded, near Hoboken Terminal, but couldn't get the OK from the state government, so they wound up in Newark.

 

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I like the look of the building along the waterfront there but it might be too close to New York. I don't really know where in Jersey the Devils fans tend to come from, maybe Newark is a more sensible destination.

 

I wonder whether Jersey City would have worked for them, too.

 

Vaguely remember hearing about this.

 

What knocked down this was real estate cost along with the number of palms you would have to grease just to get the project off the ground.

 

The Prudential Center was built for about $375 million. My guess is the Hoboken Arena would have run triple that amount.


Jersey City was never considered although it would have presented similar issues as Hoboken with costs and red tape.

 

They went with Newark simply because it represented the cheapest option that would have given them what they wanted, which was an arena in an urban environment near a major transit hub. I'd say results have been mixed. It can't call it a disaster, but even after a decade plus, the surrounding area is almost identical to when they first moved in. That said, nobody misses going to the Meadowlands.

 

If it were me, I probably would have moved them out to Parsipanny, which isn't a major city in Jersey, but it's where 80 and 287 intersect, making it the most accessible part of Northern New Jersey via car. In an area with a suburban population as large as Northern New Jersey, I think it would have worked great, but we'll never know.

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1 hour ago, pmoehrin said:

What knocked down this was real estate cost along with the number of palms you would have to grease just to get the project off the ground.

 

My wallet's tied to the goddamn esplanade, god damn it!

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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On 3/23/2017 at 4:26 PM, SFGiants58 said:

The Addison, Illinois Dome, a plan for a new White Sox stadium in 1986. It went through both domed and non-domed versions:

 

Addison_Dome_Overhead.jpg

 

What I find funny is that HOK wound up reusing the roof concept from the top design on Miller Park.


I never knew about this before now.  Kind of ironic that Milwaukee tried to get the White Sox in the 60s, but New Comiskey itself ended up in Milwaukee.

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Even before they got into MLS, the Vancouver Whitecaps were looking at building a new stadium downtown by the waterfront.  It had the support of the city and the majority of Vancouverites, but residents who lived in the Gastown area felt it was out of place for the historic area and feared about blocked access to the waterfront.  The truly amazing part of the project was that the entire $70 million cost would have been privately financed.  

 

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whitecaps-waterfront-stadium-3279d044-79

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41 minutes ago, NicDB said:


I never knew about this before now.  Kind of ironic that Milwaukee tried to get the White Sox in the 60s, but New Comiskey itself ended up in Milwaukee.

 

Of every unrealized concept on this thread, the Addison Dome got the closest to being a reality. The park now known as Guaranteed Rate Field was the last minute fallback plan the Sox came up with when this failed.

 

CBS put out a great article about it a few months ago that goes into extensive detail about how this ballpark almost came to be as well as the architecture inspirations behind it.

 

This was HOK's baby before Camden Yards and unlike a lot of the other concepts here, there is an extensive amount of information online about this unrealized ballpark, mainly because of how far in the process it got before the rug got pulled. The White Sox invested at least 18 months worth of time and energy into the park.

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49 minutes ago, NicDB said:


I never knew about this before now.  Kind of ironic that Milwaukee tried to get the White Sox in the 60s, but New Comiskey itself ended up in Milwaukee.

Remove the roof piece and it's basically New Comiskey.

 

Of course, when you go back, the early versions of Camden Yards were more like New Comiskey, too. (seen on page 1 of this thread)

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Heck, the Giants had some Sox Field-like and Kauffman-like plans for their various failed referendums:

 

chinabasin.jpg

 

sfsketch1.jpg

 

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sfsketch2.jpg

 

Link one Link two

 

There was also the San José plan, which was rejected by a wide margin in the “Measure G” referendum in 1992. Here is the proposed site on Google Maps. It would have been south of Highway 237 near Tasman Drive and Zanker Road. It’s got a bit of a Sox Field-meets-Citizens Bank Park aesthetic. 

 SJ2.jpg

 

I have not found a rendering of the park that the Giants wanted to build on the Levi’s Stadium site. 

 

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2 hours ago, M4One said:

Even before they got into MLS, the Vancouver Whitecaps were looking at building a new stadium downtown by the waterfront.  It had the support of the city and the majority of Vancouverites, but residents who lived in the Gastown area felt it was out of place for the historic area and feared about blocked access to the waterfront.  The truly amazing part of the project was that the entire $70 million cost would have been privately financed.  

 

UZ64YOEM6NB4LCVRLE22A6RH7Y

 

whitecaps-waterfront-stadium-3279d044-79

 

Would have been nice, but BC Place renovation happened and looks like Whitecaps happy with that. 

 

That site is still open to accommodate a stadium.  Would be just perfect for a baseball stadium for MLB if someone with the cash could step and and MLB is listening.

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On 3/23/2017 at 1:36 PM, smzimbabwe said:

In 1964, Portland had a proposed stadium called the "Delta Dome", in hopes of attracting a MLB and NFL team, but local voters turned it down.

Portland_66_deltadome.jpg

 

Originally, Portland tried to get the 1968 Olympics, and building an open air stadium was part of the proposal:

 

https://chatterbox.typepad.com/portlandarchitecture/2009/08/ghosts-of-portland-past-olympic-bids-elaborate-lights.html

 

After that failed, they decided to go forward with a stadium, but make it a dome.

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On 2/12/2019 at 9:21 AM, Brave-Bird 08 said:

At one point the Georgia Dome was slated to have renovations to open up the stadium and let in some natural light. 

 

OYME.gif

This is what they should have done in Atlanta instead of blowing this still new stadium up to build Mercedes benz.  I guess ATL has the money to publicly finance multiple stadiums at once every 17-20 years. 

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8 hours ago, NYUNDERDOGS said:

Shea_Dome.jpg

 There were concepts for putting a dome on Shea Stadium, never got far though.

 

Shea was built with the intention of having a dome.

 

The stadium was rushed and left 2/3rds built so it would be ready in time for the World’s Fair.

 

When they went back to finish it, they realized the building’s foundation wasn’t strong enough to support a dome, and there wasn’t much desire to expand capacity. So they just left the stadium as was.

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On 2/15/2019 at 9:42 AM, pmoehrin said:

 

Shea was built with the intention of having a dome.

 

The stadium was rushed and left 2/3rds built so it would be ready in time for the World’s Fair.

 

When they went back to finish it, they realized the building’s foundation wasn’t strong enough to support a dome, and there wasn’t much desire to expand capacity. So they just left the stadium as was.


I always wondered why Shea had such a wide-open view of absolutely nothing; I guess that answers my question - it was never intended to be that open a stadium.

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5 hours ago, mcj882000 said:

I always wondered why Shea had such a wide-open view of absolutely nothing; I guess that answers my question - it was never intended to be that open a stadium.

 

 

Shea was intended to be Yankee Stadium, and Madison Square Garden all rolled into one. Baseball and the Mets were only supposed to be a part of the stadium experience. Not the only reason you came.

 

Keep in mind this is a during a time when a new MSG is still a thought, Yankee Stadium is falling apart, and the Nassau Coliseum and Meadowlands aren't even ideas. So the purpose of this stadium being the premier sporting venue in NYC isn't that far fetched of an idea, and that's what Shea tried to promote itself as for the first decade-plus of its existence.

 

Shea hosted all sorts of events during the '60s and '70s. Concerts, boxing, WWE, religious gatherings, you name it. The Beatles played there in '65 in what may very well be the most famous rock concert in United States history. Then came back again the next year.

 

Why it didn't work out was the same reason none of the multi-purpose stadiums panned out. It may be suitable for all activities, but it's not optimal for any of them, so by '84, the stadium was a single-use baseball park.

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The Reds looked at renovating and retrofitting Riverfront Stadium including renovating the outside and shifting the field orientation slightly to face the skyline rather than US Bank Arena and the river. They slightly went through with this when they tore out seats to make room for building Great American Ball Park.

cinergyhok_550x379.jpg

 

Two sites for the Reds were considered, the riverfront and Broadway Commons. This was the proposed riverfront site where GABP is

stadium_Reds-released-concept_October-19

 

This was the Broadway Commons stadium. It wasnt in a good neighborhood. Today its the site of the JACK casino.

broadway_600x292.jpg

 

In the 90s when both the Reds and Bengals were looking at new stadiums, the Reds were looking at the Paul Brown site while a new or renovated stadium for the Bengals would be at the existing Riverfront Stadium site.

 

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Cincinnati briefly proposed bidding for the 2012 olympics that would have added more venues including the Olympic Stadium on the other side of the bridges and Paul Brown Stadium and GABP

 

Olympics1.jpg

 

This bid included retrofitting Nippert Stadium and building a dome for it.

olympics2.jpg

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On 2/14/2019 at 9:24 PM, M4One said:

Even before they got into MLS, the Vancouver Whitecaps were looking at building a new stadium downtown by the waterfront.  It had the support of the city and the majority of Vancouverites, but residents who lived in the Gastown area felt it was out of place for the historic area and feared about blocked access to the waterfront.  The truly amazing part of the project was that the entire $70 million cost would have been privately financed.  

 

UZ64YOEM6NB4LCVRLE22A6RH7Y

 

whitecaps-waterfront-stadium-3279d044-79

 

Would have been amazing. The failure of this plan is why MLS now requires incoming clubs to have a stadium solution settled before actually entering the league.

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