Sunday, August 29, 1999

A Search for the Perfect Ballpark

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We sent two reporters to six of baseball's newest ballparks to see what the Reds should copy and what they should ignore

BY JOHN ERARDI and JOHN BYCZKOWSKI
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Reds hope their new ballpark along the Ohio River shoreline will be as successful as Chicago's nostalgic Wrigley Field, which opened in 1914. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        No offense to Baltimore, Atlanta and Denver, but the new Cincinnati ballpark should be better than any of those.

        The site on the banks of the Ohio River is more dramatic than any of those places, and few franchises can match the Cincinnati Reds' rich history of champions, stars and baseball pioneers.

        With that to work with, Reds fans and local taxpayers are expecting the best, and Reds managing executive John Allen isn't blind to it.

        “I think fans and media around here are putting a tremendous amount of pressure on (the Reds) on this new ballpark,” he said. “People act like, "Well, they're not going to do a good job, they're not going to try their hardest.'

THREE-DAY SERIES

With the Reds and architect HOK Sport close to unveiling a design for the team's new ballpark, The Enquirer wanted to show readers what the state of the art looks like. Reporters John Byczkowski and John Erardi visited six of baseball's newest ballparks — Safeco Field in Seattle, Camden Yards in Baltimore, The Ballpark in Arlington, Turner Field in Atlanta, Coors Field in Denver and Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix.   Today:   • The best of Coors and Camden Yards.   • Comparing state-of-the-art ballparks   Monday:   • The latest design plans for the Reds' new ballpark   • Who else in Major League Baseball is building ballparks.   Tuesday   • Twenty-five tips from our experts on how to build a special ballpark in Cincinnati   Talk it up   Join a discussion on the new ballpark at www.cincinnati.com/talk.

        “Hell, yes, we're going to try our hardest to do the best we can, and do a ballpark that everyone can be proud of,” Mr. Allen said, “not only the taxpayers of Hamilton County, first and foremost, but also our fans, our season ticket holders, the owners of the team, the citizens of Cincinnati. Why would we do anything but give it a hundred percent and try and get the best ballpark?”

        Over 10 days in August, two Enquirer reporters visited six of Major League Baseball's newest ballparks — talked to fans, quizzed team officials and designers, ate the hotdogs, drank the beer, sat in the box seats, stood in the outfield — to learn what makes them special.

        The lessons learned are concise, but critical to the Reds' goal of building a unique ballpark. The team must:

        • Be willing to take risks in the ballpark's design. Success doesn't mean copying the same plans used in Baltimore, Phoenix or Arlington, Texas.

        • Insist the new ballpark tie in with the river, connect visually with downtown and fuel development of the central riverfront.

        • Demand that the architect produce what the team demands. This will ensure the park caters to fans' desires — be it wider seats and concourses to killer views of the Ohio River and downtown skyline.

        At the same time, the Reds must make certain the new ballpark provides millions of dollars of new revenue, necessary for the small-market team to succeed in a Major League Baseball economy that now favors big-city teams.

Most new ballparks attempt to emulate the quirky shape and feel of Boston's Fenway Park, which was built to fit the city block on which it sits. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        The Enquirer hit the road in anticipation of architect HOK Sport's expected unveiling in late September of some detailed renderings of of the Reds' proposed new home. Cinergy Field's replacement is to open on the riverfront in 2003.

        Insisting that HOK deliver the design envisioned by the Reds is critical, say team officials and owners from the six cities visited by The Enquirer.

        To get a unique ballpark — as well as one that combines all of the various restaurants, interactive games and revenue streams that keep franchises financially healthy nowadays — the Reds will have to push, pull and pummel it out of HOK, which dominates the ballpark-design industry.

Creating Camden Yards
        That's nothing against HOK. It's just the way the process works.

        In particular, those in Baltimore, Phoenix and Texas say baseball teams must be relentless in making architects understand what's best for one team in one city.

        In Baltimore, the Orioles proved that point with Camden Yards, which most people, even architecture critics, regard as “great.”

        And it was Janet Marie Smith, the former Orioles architect who is now president of Turner Sports in Atlanta, who helped hammer Camden Yards out of HOK's architects.

        “Architecture is a two-way street,” Ms. Smith said. “"Any good architect will tell you that. The best work is born out of a challenging (assignment).”

        Baltimore was challenging: to build a ballpark that would continue to feed the continuing revitalization of downtown, take advantage of the 90-year-old B&O Railroad warehouse on the site; and incorporate Eutaw Street into the ballpark.

        “If the mandate ... had been different, the interpretation (that produced Camden Yards) would have been different — very different,” said Ms. Smith of Turner Sports. “But, yes, at Camden, we had the advantage of a vibrant downtown near the ballpark. It was a (natural) to bring the city inside the (ballpark).”

        If the first golden age of ballpark construction was marked by Fenway Park, Ebbets Field and Crosley Field, historians in the coming years might note the second renaissance began with Camden Yards — a brick-and-steel ballpark that uses its surroundings to make an evening at the game unforgettable.

        Baltimore's experience fed right into central Texas, when the Rangers began planning a ballpark in Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth.

        “If a city wants to build a park that is good and really different, leaders must take some risks,” said former Texas Rangers owner Tom Schieffer, the team's point man for the Ballpark in Arlington.

        Although some architectural critics say the Ballpark lays it on too thick in paying historical homage to past ballparks — the two-tiered outfield of Tiger Stadium, the pitchers' bullpen bench cut into the fence ala the Polo Grounds, patterned roof edging of Yankee Stadium — that is precisely why the Rangers' audience loves it.

        “It grows on you,” said fan Darell Richolson, 56, of North Dallas. “Every time you come here, you see something you didn't notice before. You're always stumbling upon some new view or some little nuance. They put so much into it that way.”

        The guiding principle of Mr. Schieffer's ballpark philosophy hangs on the wall of the Legends of the Game at the Ballpark in Arlington. These are the words of his speech to 49,000 fans the day the Ballpark at Arlington opened:

        “I received much good advice from around the baseball world. The best of it came from Janet Marie Smith and Larry Lucchino (who wielded the hammer in the design/building process for Camden Yards). They told me to find the best architect I could, and not to worry about whether or not they'd ever done a ballpark.”

        Mr. Schieffer and the Rangers wanted “something different.”

        They got it from David Schwarz, the Washington, D.C.-based architect who designed the Ballpark in Arlington for the Texas Rangers. He had barely ever been to a ballgame before, let alone ever before designed a baseball park.

        “He claims he went to his brother-in-law's birthday party at Shea Stadium,” Mr. Schieffer said. “I'm not even sure if he did that much. Not until the ballpark was done and everybody liked it did I tell people he had never been to a game.

        “A ball club can figure out the sports part (of a facility). The tough part is creating a building that will be unique and that people will like.”

        Trying to please the critics is “an extremely hard thing to do,” Mr. Schwarz said. “My feeling is that when you walk around ("The Ballpark') it is an incredibly pleasant place to be.”

Something unique
        In Phoenix, Jerry Colangelo, president of the Arizona Diamondbacks, visited Baltimore, Arlington and other ballparks before setting out to build his team's park. He heard the adage that the best buildings are client-driven. And the client must start driving from Day One.

        Mr. Colangelo tells how he had narrowed his search for a design firm to two (HOK and Ellerbe Beckett) and spent a day with each, explaining what he and the Diamondbacks wanted in their new ballpark.

        A few weeks later, HOK's and Ellerbe's architects came in with their drawings. In both instances, Mr. Colangelo said, the architects came up with renderings of the parks they — not the Diamondbacks — wanted.

        OK, now let's do this again, Mr. Colangelo told them, ignoring the drawings and reiterating what the club wanted.

        “I described in pretty much detail what we had in mind,” Mr. Colangelo said. “One of the firms (Ellerbe Becket) was responsive and the other one (HOK) wasn't.”

        Ellerbe Becket got the job, and the Diamondbacks got what they needed: Bank One Ballpark, a colorful, retractable-roof stadium that will draw 3 million fans this year.

        “I think they're both excellent firms,” Mr. Colangelo said. “The key point is that the client must and should have significant input into what the building ultimately looks like and how it functions.”

        Mr. Colangelo's anecdote in no way casts any aspersions on HOK, whose list of design credits is a Who's Who of major-league ballparks. Among them: Camden Yards in Baltimore, Coors Field in Denver and Jacobs Field in Cleveland. It also is designing parks to open next year in San Francisco, Detroit and Houston. Cincinnati is not any of those places. The new ballpark here will have a unique setting (the riverfront) and a unique tenant (the oldest professional baseball team). The new ballpark must tie in with the river, connect visually with downtown, fuel development of the central riverfront, and represent the city's baseball heritage.

        The quality of the information HOK receives, and the resolve of the people who deal with HOK to give the Reds and the region what it needs, will determine the outcome of the ballpark.

        “The architect (of any project) needs direction to develop the program and to prioritize where the emphasis should be placed — is it on operations or the symbolism of the building?” Ms. Smith said. “The architect doesn't know how you'll operate the building. Even the best architects aren't mind-readers.” Does Mr. Schieffer think the Reds can get a unique ballpark from HOK, which already has designed so many?

        “Yes,” Mr. Schieffer said, “but what you've got to be careful of is that you don't accept the words of experts (i.e. HOK) that something can't be done or that it has to be done a certain way,” he said.

        “It's easy to fall into that situation. "They've done these before, so they must know what they're doing.' Both sides can get lulled into accepting what's been done.”

        The Reds' Allen says the Reds don't want another old-style, “retro” ballpark.

        “We have to bring in some of the old and some of the new,” Mr. Allen said. “While Coors and Camden and the Jake (in Cleveland) are all beautiful ballparks, they all fit in that retro category. We want to avoid that.”

Not another Coors
        Dan Meis is one architect who thinks the Reds may say one thing but want another. He's part of the sports group at architects NBBJ of Los Angeles, which designed Paul Brown Stadium for football in Cincinnati and the new Safeco Field ballpark in Seattle. He pitched Hamilton County to design the new Reds ballpark.

        “When we pursued the Reds project, I made a pretty strong pitch that the retro ballparks are really beautiful, but you don't want it to be just another Coors Field,” he said. “And the thing for me in Cincinnati, I grew up in the generation of the Big Red Machine. (The Reds have) one of the oldest baseball histories, but you have this 1970s history that no one else can match.

        “And how do you draw on that? Should we not find a building that's truly Cincinnati and not pulling on (the features of) Ebbets Field? But I'll tell you it's really hard to break that. The owners are seeing success in the retro ballparks, and they're the models that are out there right now.”

        On the Cincinnati riverfront, “retro” might also clash with the sleek new Bengals stadium.

        “We joked in our presentation, "How do you make the Jetsons meet the Flintstones?'” Mr. Meis said. “It'll be interesting to see where it goes. When we talked to (the Reds) early on and made that pitch, they were still heading in” the direction of a retro ballpark.

        There's no doubt Cincinnati is bursting with potential.

        “Cincinnati is a great canvas for a ballpark,” the Rangers' Mr. Schieffer said. “I would love to do a ballpark in Cincinnati. Where people love baseball, that's the place where they're going to love their ballpark the most — if it's done right. Wrigley Field was done right. Crosley Field was done right. Riverfront wasn't done right and it's why people can't wait to get out of there.”

        Joe Spear, the principal architect at HOK Sport working on Cincinnati's ballpark, says the Reds are pushing HOK for something that's both different and traditional.

        “To me, baseball is a very traditional game, and in a lot of the old parks you can see two or three different architects' hands,” he said. In places like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field, seating decks were added over the years, and the shape of the field changed.

        “You get this real informal feeling about those ballparks when you're there. You can see the quirks and the idiosyncrasies as the ballpark has evolved,” Mr. Spear said. “What we're trying to do with the Reds here is develop that from Day One, and do it in ways that mean something.”

        Is there enough leeway — within the downtown, riverfront setting, the team's deep history and the city's conservative bent — to allow for a ballpark that's different and great?

        “I read something recently,” NBBJ's Mr. Meis said, “that said the first one that does a non-retro ballpark is really going to be taking a risk.”

        How much of a risk, he added, depends on how much the home city is willing to break away from the pack. sub

       

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