A Glimpse Of The Stadium

David Nakamura has a front-page look at the architect for the new stadium and the many challenges he faces.

It's a good read, and gives a few glimpes, here and there, about what we can expect. (See this graphic for a snapshot)

Just a few thoughts....

The ballpark will be oriented towards the northeast. The Capitol should be visible if you're sitting on the first-base side, and the Washington Monument if you're in the upper deck. It couldn't be oriented the other way, because that would place the setting sun in the batter's eye.

It appears that each side will have a separate facade. The S. Capitol Street side will be stone and glass to form a link with DC. The Anacostia side will be of steel and glass (think of any other HOK project you've ever seen).

The ballpark isn't directly on the water, and they won't have development rights of the waterfont. They're held by a separate corporation. So tie-ins, such as a water taxi, or a great waterfront promenade, would need to be worked out as a partnership (ha!), and wouldn't necessarily be reflected in the initial design of the stadium.

They plan on using Half St, which would run the two blocks from the Metro to the Stadium as a central corridor for restaurants and retail. I would suspect that a portion of that would be team controlled, ala Eutah Street in Bawlmer.

What's interesting, and I'm not sure whether this is the reality of the situation, or just me reading into things, is that the city seems to want to develop around S. Capitol Street, and the developers around Half St.

Half Street looks like it'd make more sense. People aren't usually going to walk a block or two out of their way if they don't have to (especially in this heat!).

As far as the actual stadium design, expect an assymetrical outfield to "provide more interesting bounces on long hits." Woo. That's fun. (Now, unless they'd slant the walls so that balls would bounce high up into the air, or create curvy chutes, such as the rightfield wall in Fenway, there's not that much interesting with wall bounces.)

They also plan to have 'seating neighborhoods'. Yay. If you've ever looked at Philly's seating chart, for example, all 'seating neighborhoods' do is create confusing ticket price schemes. They claim that it creates 'intimacy' in a large park. If I'm not mistaken, a smaller stadium that's close to the action (Which HOK isn't known for) is what creates intimicy (Man, I hate that word; it's a completely meaningless word -- when it comes to ballparks, at least).

Which leads me to the most distressing part of the article...

"Team President Tony Tavares recently requested that all 66 luxury boxes be on the mezzanine level between first base and third base so big-spending patrons would have prime views of the field. Spear agreed to design stacked boxes."

And my worst fears have come true.

Are you enjoying your view from the 400 section behind the plate?

Kiss it goodbye.

With a stacked luxury box setup, the upper deck will probably start at about where the 500 section begins today. (if not higher!) Not only that, but it will probably be further away from the plate.

Oh, and expect your ticket prices to go up. Those seats, which currently have a gate price of $20, will probably be closer to $30 by the time the new stadium is up and running.

So, appreciate the good views at RFK while you can. Unless you can spare a few thousand for a luxury box, or field level seats, is as good as you're probably going to get.