MLB Stadium Saga: Oakland/Tampa Bay/Southside

[Sec19Row53]

Under construction. As it says above, nothing around (north to the top - the press box is on the west side of the stadium -- you can see the framing of it):

[Digby]

In ye olden days, the original Foxboro Stadium (nee Schaffer) sort of had that effect, although the neighbors weren't quite as on top of the stadium as they are in Green Bay or Buffalo. But they were close enough that homeowners would charge $10 or $20 to let people park on their lawns. When Gillette opened up, the town select board also outlawed that practice, although actual businesses along Route 1 toward the stadium still get to charge a premium for private parking and obviously the rates have gone up. The slow expansion of Gillette's parking lots and its associated outdoor mall of boring shops have also dulled the effect of feeling plopped down in suburbia. 

 

Anyway, this all kind of proves the point though, that the ecosystem in and around a stadium for the 80k-capacity, 12 times a year-used NFL stadium is a very different thing than baseball stadiums or arenas (or, I guess, MLS stadiums) that can and should be used 2-4 times per week, and the surroundings will reflect that.

 

Thinking about this more, Denver is such a weird example of this, the way the NFL stadium, arena, amusement park and acres upon acres of parking lots bring such an abrupt end to the core of the city. Worse than the Philly situation due to where it's located. Coors Field, though, fits perfectly neatly into the neighborhood.

[The_Admiral]

Knowing it will never happen, just a purely hypothetical question: if the Patriots announced they were tearing some stuff down and building a new stadium in the city of Boston, how much of a "WHERE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO PARK?!?" freakout would there be?

[Sec19Row53]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

In ye olden days, the original Foxboro Stadium (nee Schaffer) sort of had that effect, although the neighbors weren't quite as on top of the stadium as they are in Green Bay or Buffalo. But they were close enough that homeowners would charge $10 or $20 to let people park on their lawns. When Gillette opened up, the town select board also outlawed that practice, although actual businesses along Route 1 toward the stadium still get to charge a premium for private parking and obviously the rates have gone up. The slow expansion of Gillette's parking lots and its associated outdoor mall of boring shops have also dulled the effect of feeling plopped down in suburbia. 

 

Anyway, this all kind of proves the point though, that the ecosystem in and around a stadium for the 80k-capacity, 12 times a year-used NFL stadium is a very different thing than baseball stadiums or arenas (or, I guess, MLS stadiums) that can and should be used 2-4 times per week, and the surroundings will reflect that.

 

Thinking about this more, Denver is such a weird example of this, the way the NFL stadium, arena, amusement park and acres upon acres of parking lots bring such an abrupt end to the core of the city. Worse than the Philly situation due to where it's located. Coors Field, though, fits perfectly neatly into the neighborhood.

Or, you build a successful development such that the stadium and its surroundings are used more than just on game day.

[Digby]

16 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Knowing it will never happen, just a purely hypothetical question: if the Patriots announced they were tearing some stuff down and building a new stadium in the city of Boston, how much of a "WHERE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO PARK?!?" freakout would there be?

 

There doesn't seem to be any definitive oral histories of that effort the way we got so many about the time the Patriots "almost" moved to Hartford. As I vaguely recall, because I was a dumb child at the time, the state plan was to have a Baltimore-style adjacency of football and baseball stadiums what eventually became the Seaport neighborhood, though it was nothing but parking lots in the 1990s so the parking lot culture would have survived. Obviously not happening nowadays. 

 

But your question also reminds me that there's supposedly an alternate universe where the Olympics kicked off in Boston last week, so we could have had this discussion about this thing:

 

[GhostOfNormMacdonald]

That's, uh, interesting. Unsure how to feel about the design

 

 

 

[kolob]

7 hours ago, GhostOfNormMacdonald said:

That's, uh, interesting. Unsure how to feel about the design

 

Eh. It only got to the "Fireworks Rendering Stage" so it would in the end you'd probably be looking at a very toned down Gillette Stadium 2.0. You only have to worry if it gets to the "Two-Dimensional Stock Photo Crowd Stage."

[Digby]

I kind of liked that look though it's very derivative of the Birds Nest in Beijing, I think.

 

When they pulled the plug they were still saying the Olympic Stadium would be temporary. I don't think it was ever even suggested that the Patriots would ever move there after the Games (I think it would have been a 10% capacity downgrade, anyway). There were rumblings it could be downsized to become the Revolution stadium but that was never formally part of the proposal, I don't think. 

 

Hard to imagine driving by that thing on 93. Instead it's going to be more train yards, now.

[gosioux76]

On 7/27/2024 at 3:38 PM, Sec19Row53 said:

The seating bowl of those 60 rows is still intact. It was finally completed (that is 60 rows all around the stadium) for the 1968 season (IIRC).  The view that @BBTV posted has the north end zone on the right.  Here's an overhead view from Google maps that shows what it looks like 'now'. I-41 is to the far left of the photo. North is the top.

 

Here's a shot early in its lifetime. South is at the top of this photo. The house we used to tailgate at from that earlier photo is at the open lot next to what looks like a low, white roofed barn or storage building. The last white house on the far side of the street is one of the two in the article I linked earlier that was just bought for big bucks.

 

This is all fascinating. Am I seeing this right? Was all that parking area cleared to make way for residential developments? Or is this bottom photo just a super tight angle and I'm not seeing the full scope of the housing from back then? 

[Sec19Row53]

13 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

This is all fascinating. Am I seeing this right? Was all that parking area cleared to make way for residential developments? Or is this bottom photo just a super tight angle and I'm not seeing the full scope of the housing from back then? 

The parking lot in the bottom photo has been filled in by some of the developments that the team has made as they've grown the stadium. To build up for the club seats and suites, they built out around the original seating bowl. They've added administrative buildings and a bar/party building within the parking lot.

 

There was no housing around it when it was originally built - the city of Green Bay and the village of Ashwaubenon grew to meet the stadium. The houses at the top of the bottom picture are on the street that I drew a red line on below. This gives a zoomed in view on Lambeau. The grassy areas to the lower left of Lambeau are properties that the Packers have bought and torn down in anticipation of further development by the team. To the west of the stadium (north is up on this picture), they've bought nearly all of that property and have developed it.

[gosioux76]

6 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

The parking lot in the bottom photo has been filled in by some of the developments that the team has made as they've grown the stadium. To build up for the club seats and suites, they built out around the original seating bowl. They've added administrative buildings and a bar/party building within the parking lot.

 

There was no housing around it when it was originally built - the city of Green Bay and the village of Ashwaubenon grew to meet the stadium. The houses at the top of the bottom picture are on the street that I drew a red line on below. This gives a zoomed in view on Lambeau. The grassy areas to the lower left of Lambeau are properties that the Packers have bought and torn down in anticipation of further development by the team. To the west of the stadium (north is up on this picture), they've bought nearly all of that property and have developed it.

 

Huh. What's interesting to me is that the Packers seemed to give up significant amounts of surface parking to allow for increased residential density or other development.  It just seems like a really stark contrast to subsequent stadium developments that embraced the parking lot culture for tailgating. Compare that to Arrowhead in KC or Highmark in Buffalo, both of which exist within a sea of open concrete. 

 

I had always assumed that the residential areas pre-dated Lambeau. 

[Sec19Row53]

9 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

Huh. What's interesting to me is that the Packers seemed to give up significant amounts of surface parking to allow for increased residential density or other development.  It just seems like a really stark contrast to subsequent stadium developments that embraced the parking lot culture for tailgating. Compare that to Arrowhead in KC or Highmark in Buffalo, both of which exist within a sea of open concrete. 

 

I had always assumed that the residential areas pre-dated Lambeau. 

Sort of.

 

Up until 1994, the parking lot was just that - a parking lot. With the beginning of the re-development (and addition of suites and boxes), there wasn't room to park first due to construction equipment and then as the space got filled in with other things. The team recognized that getting $25 per car (or whatever it is these days) was far offset by making use of that space for year round use -- Pro Shop; restaurant, Atrium for private and public events, administrative offices, player parking structure, training space... When construction began, the team said to plan on finding parking for the next few years in the surrounding area. Most of us never went back to the lot at that point.

These three shots give a little sense of the build out of the lot. Even in 1997, the footprint of the stadium wasn't much more than it had been in 1957. That had totally changed by 2003. (FYI - N is up in 1957, lower left in 1997, and lower right in 2003 photos).

Sorry for the Lambeau-jack - I really should put all this in its own thread.

[The_Admiral]

I always liked the Lambeau renovations. Amazing that the Packers did that while the Bears were doing Parthenon Spaceship. On second thought, no it isn't.

[LMU]

The MLB stadium thread has been #Packjacked

[TBGKon]

Bring this back on topic.  Pinellas County has joined the City of St Petersburg in approving the Rays new stadium partnership.

 

Pinellas County BCC approves historic Rays stadium partnership

 

Groundbreaking is expected to be January 2025 with a goal of opening for the beginning of the 2028 season.

[GDAWG]

43 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

Bring this back on topic.  Pinellas County has joined the City of St Petersburg in approving the Rays new stadium partnership.

 

Pinellas County BCC approves historic Rays stadium partnership

 

Groundbreaking is expected to be January 2025 with a goal of opening for the beginning of the 2028 season.

 

The Rays Stadium saga has finally ended.  

[kolob]

2 hours ago, GDAWG said:

The Rays Stadium saga has finally ended.  

 

How many of us really thought it'd turn out like this? Especially when this thread started? It felt like a forgone conclusion at one point a move to Orlando, Montreal or Nashville felt imminent. 

 

I doubt this thread will truly die, especially with the A's situation. I bet we're far from done with that saga. It just feels like we're going to get some major curveballs before they get into a permanent stadium.

[SavardToColton]

1 hour ago, kolob said:

 

How many of us really thought it'd turn out like this? Especially when this thread started? It felt like a forgone conclusion at one point a move to Orlando, Montreal or Nashville felt imminent. 

 

I doubt this thread will truly die, especially with the A's situation. I bet we're far from done with that saga. It just feels like we're going to get some major curveballs before they get into a permanent stadium.

I will say in a sense it feels anti-climatic that after all the drama that I've seen in the area over the stadium situation, the solution was basically just moving a few feet into what is now parking lot. Tampa and St. Pete had a war of words, and even Oldsmar threw their hat into the ring, and I'm just understating the drama involved. I guess it adds to the anti-climatic nature that the final votes got overshadowed by the trade deadline. That said, the closest they came to threatening to leave the area was the hair-brained "Sister Cities" plan with Montreal which rightly got laughed at by Manfred and the PA. In the end after that plan got thrown into the garbage the combination of that plan getting thrown out, Manfred essentially saying they didn't want the TV market to be lost, St Pete's new mayor being willing to meet the Rays demands (land and development rights), and the fact the 2027 lease expiration date was getting closer led to the perfect storm of this solution. Of course the cynical part of me says we might be back here in this thread in the 2050s. We shall see. 

 

As for our green and gold friends in Oakland Sacramento? Las Vegas? I have a feeling we're going to be in here a while talking about them.

[Dynasty]

The next decade or two is going to be telling in regards to their attendance. The new ballpark takes away one reasoning to their low numbers, so if they continue to struggle then that should give us more insight into what is the larger problem.

 

None the less, this was clearly the most jarring issue they had and I'm glad they got it taken care of.

[The_Admiral]

3 hours ago, kolob said:

How many of us really thought it'd turn out like this? Especially when this thread started? It felt like a forgone conclusion at one point a move to Orlando, Montreal or Nashville felt imminent. 

 

I never thought any big moves would happen. Orlando intrigued me, but I had a feeling there was always going to be an AL presence somewhere in that part of Florida. What I didn't think would happen would be following up years and years of pointing out all the infrastructural and demographic issues with their location in St. Petersburg and then claiming the problem was solved by building a new place right next to their location in St. Petersburg. I really thought they'd wind up close to the Bolts.