After a large-scale, multiyear, $300 million renovation, the Blue Jays are hoping to transform the Rogers Centre from feeling like a cavernous stadium to a traditional ballpark that will appeal to both casual and dedicated baseball fans.
The Blue Jays gave the first glimpse of the upcoming changes Thursday when they unveiled new details and the first artistic renderings of the first significant renovation of the stadium in more than 30 years. It is set to take place over the course of the next two to three years.
Advertisem*nt
The privately-funded plan promises to dramatically transform the Rogers Centre from “a multi-purpose stadium into more of a ballpark experience for our fans, most importantly, but also for our players,” Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro said during a presentation to the media.
“By the time we’re done these two or three years, over $300 million will be infused into the renovation of this building, which is really not an isolated investment, but a continuation of the investment that was made in the player development complex, that continues to be made in player personnel and hopefully will continue to be made over the next five days, next offseason and beyond as we continue to build our championship core and drive towards that World Championship, which is the ultimate goal here,” Shapiro said.
The renovations will be confined to the interior of the building and will focus on modernizing the fan experience in the stands, including improving sightlines so that every seat faces the action, bringing the fans closer to the field and players, introducing more social and congregating areas and updating the field-level player facilities. The club announced their intention to update the 33-year-old stadium in the heart of downtown Toronto earlier this year but is only releasing the scope of the project now with more updates expected periodically until its completion.
“When we think about a compelling fan experience, something that creates something for everyone that wants to come see a game, not everyone wants to watch a game in the same way,” Shapiro said. “We do not have that diversity of fan experiences. There’s one reason to come here and that’s for the hardcore baseball fan or the fans that might be excited about us winning, but we don’t have some of the greatest bars, some of the greatest family spaces, we don’t have great spaces for our fans to congregate, to interact with the players, so attempting to solve that challenge is also something that we undertook.”
Advertisem*nt
The renovation will take place in multiple phases over the next two to three offseasons, the club said, so as to not disrupt the baseball season. The upgrades will touch on primary fan areas including the seating sections in the 100-infield level, the 100- and 200-outfield level, the 500 level, and the field level for the benefit of players.
“When fans come into the building next year, sit in these seats and the seats below, with the Canadian flag unfurled in the field behind us, it will be a dramatically different vision, a dramatically different vista and a different ballpark,” Shapiro said. “But that will just be the start. Then it’ll be the offseason or two that follow that we revise the entire lower bowl and really turn this stadium into a ballpark.”
The first phase of the project will commence this offseason and is expected to be completed in time for Opening Day 2023. The initial changes will include creating social spaces with patios, drink rails, bars and viewing platforms in the 100- and 200-level outfield levels that will feature food and beverage options.
The bullpens in left and right field will be raised and underneath there will be an area for the relievers to prep for the game. The bullpens will be surrounded by new bleacher seats and viewing areas to increase fan and player interaction. Some 100-level seats will be moved forward to new outfield walls to bring fans closer to the field and eliminate the dead space that exists below the outfield seats now.
The club hasn’t shared details on the new outfield dimensions or fence heights yet, but Shapiro said they’ll include unique angles and dimensions. However, after consulting with their research and development and analytics departments, the team does not expect changes to the field to meaningfully alter its neutral competitive nature, meaning it won’t lean hitter or pitcher friendly.
Advertisem*nt
“It will impact individual games, it will impact individual hits and for that first year, we might go, ‘oh that ball might have been a home run last year,’ but over the course of the season, and the hundreds of balls and thousands of balls in play, it’s not going to have an impact on outcomes,” Shapiro said.
In right and left field at the 500-level, the seats will be removed and replaced with two standing-room-only, non-ticketed social decks with the idea that one would have a family-friendly focus while the other would have a more party atmosphere to cater to all fans. Every seat in the upper deck, which are the originals from 1989, will be replaced with larger and more comfortable ones.
At the field level, the players’ family room, the players’ weight room and staff locker rooms will be renovated in phase one with more extensive fixes coming in the future phase to further modernize the facilities.
Players’ families were also consulted on what they wanted to see in a family room.
Future plans for the lower bowl, including field-level premium seating areas and social spaces, as well as clubhouse and player facilities are still in progress. They are slated to be completed in the 2023-2024 offseasons.
“We’re going to create best in-class premium (seating), which honestly we have almost no premium (seating) in this ballpark that’s up to the standards of modern sports, whether it be arenas, ballparks or stadium,” Shapiro said.
The Rogers Centre opened in 1989 — it was first named the SkyDome — as a multi-purpose stadium and its retractable domed roof was considered a technical marvel at the time. But soon after it opened, the trend in baseball moved away from multi-functional stadiums and back to classic ballparks, such as Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, which opened in 1992.
Advertisem*nt
Today, the Rogers Centre is one of only three multi-purpose stadiums remaining in the major leagues, along with Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. and RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland, Calif. The Canadian Football League no longer plays games at the Rogers Centre, which is why the club can move toward a more focused baseball experience.
Since its opening, the Rogers Centre has never undergone a large-scale renovation. Looking ahead, eventually a new stadium will need to be built in Toronto and Shapiro acknowledged this is only a “medium-term solution” that will buy the team about 10 to 12 years until the club has to reach a decision on a long-term fix, whether that means a tear down and massive renovation of the Rogers Centre or rebuilding a stadium in potentially a new location.
“That’s an extremely complex project and something that we hope to undertake when we immediately finish this,” Shapiro said.
In preparation of this renovation, Blue Jays leaders researched and toured ballparks and stadiums across North America and Europe to draw inspiration from. One key element was to modernize their space for the present, while also anticipating future trends to ensure it’s not outdated quickly.
The Blue Jays have again partnered with well-known stadium architecture firm, Populous to lead the project’s design after the team was pleased with their work on the player development facility in Dunedin, Fla.
(Renderings courtesy of Blue Jays)
