Ballpark will cater to fans with food and a view
With their outdoor
stadium plan approved, the Twins turn their attention to the design.
Rochelle Olson, Star Tribune
Kiss the Dome Dog goodbye.
When the Minnesota Twins' new ballpark opens, probably for the 2010 season, nouvelle cuisine will be one of the obvious changes for fans.
In the baseball industry, an expanded
stadium food menu adds to what's known as "the fan experience." It's a big reason the team has wanted a new baseball-only ballpark for the past decade.
Ask Twins President Dave St. Peter what it will be like for fans in the new park and he said, "In a sentence, the antithesis of the Metrodome."
With legislative passage of the ballpark bill over the weekend and a prompt signing expected from Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the 10-year Minnesota Twins lobbying effort comes to a close. Now the team will pick an architect and spend the next year designing a new ballpark. The finer points will have to wait, but much already is known about the new home.
"Tremendous intimacy" will be the feeling in the new park, St. Peter said. Situated on a mere 11 acres, this ballpark will be a snug fit for 42,000 fans, meaning they will be oh-so-close to the players and the field.
The concourse will be wide open, so fans can grab more chow without missing action. The concourses will be wider so fans won't feel like they're in a rugby scrum when they make their way in and out. There will be many more restrooms, especially for the ladies, St. Peter said.
It's estimated to cost $522 million to erect the ballpark -- $390 million for construction, $90 million for infrastructure and $42 million for financing.
So far, the most attention has been paid not to the interior of the park, but how it fits together with the North Star commuter rail, the Hiawatha light-rail corridor, the Cedar Lake bike trail and the existing buildings in the Warehouse District where it will be built.
A sense of place
A signature piece will be a new pedestrian bridge across I-394 from Target Center to the ballpark. St. Peter said the key passageway will be a much more than a walkway and will usher fans in with a dazzling view of the entire field. "The front door to the ballpark will be from the outfield," he said.
At San Francisco Giants home games, fans have a view of the Bay. In Denver, Colorado Rockies fans can see the mountains. In Seattle, Mariners fans look out over Puget Sound. In Minneapolis, the seats will look toward the downtown skyline. "When our games are televised, it will immediately resonate that this game is being played in downtown Minneapolis," St. Peter said.
Chuck Leer, a downtown developer and chairman of New Ballpark Inc., which has pushed for an urban
stadium for years, said the new ballpark is going to be knitted into the Warehouse District. "It's going to be completely different than the Metrodome, which is like this gigantic orb that emerges from the ground," he said. The new ballpark, he added, "will make everything around it so much more than it is today."
Leer sees opportunities for the ballpark to help weave the Farmers Market and the Heritage Park housing development into downtown.
"The Metrodome seals you off with this terrible wall and you have to go up to get into it. The most inviting places, you go down to get inside," he said.
Twins public relations consultant Mark Andrew said the new ballpark is going to be better than fans expect. "It's like feeding a dog a meal and they're about to get steak," he said. "Everybody understands this is about raising money for the team, but the experience of the fan is never off their radar screen."
Dessert à la cart?
"A happy fan will keep coming back," Andrew said.
The team has had plenty of time to dream about what it might want in a ballpark, including the food. Will it be margaritas and dessert carts à la U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, the luscious Polish sausages at Boston's Fenway Park or the Nathan's and Hebrew Nationals at
Yankee Stadium?
The team is -- ahem --salivating over the array of options. "We've never had the ability to contract with a concessionaire directly," St. Peter said. The Twins didn't control Metrodome concessions.
Fans will have to adjust to some things. "A generation of fans has never experienced baseball outdoors. That whole generation has never experienced a rainout," St. Peter said.
Options will be explored for heating the park either through the seats or radiant heat, possibly through the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC), which is next door. A sun screen will be installed on a portion of the upper deck, too. The Twins originally wanted a retractable roof ballpark, but they gave that up because of cost. Current technology doesn't allow one to be added later.
"We've been thinking about this for 10 years, we have a lot of things in mind," St. Peter said.
When the team looks for the gold standard of fan experience, it's looks not to another baseball park, but to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. St. Peter said Xcel upped fan expectations for games while also serving as a hockey shrine. In the St. Paul arena, fans have food options ranging from simple sandwiches to high-end restaurants. Rows of hockey jerseys line the walls. Fans can see the game well no matter where they sit or stand.
"April 2010 will mark our 50th season in Minnesota," St. Peter said. "We certainly will want to celebrate our history with this franchise."
Staff Writer Paul Levy contributed to this report. Rochelle Olson • 612-673-1747
©2006 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/446356.html
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