Toronto Rogers Centre Renovations | ?m | ?s | Toronto Blue Jays | Populous

The only thing that the Rogers Centre is currently good for is surviving a meltdown at Pickering or Darlington Nuclear.

It was designed as a multi-purpose stadium in an era where you had Maple Leaf Gardens and Exhibition Stadium as the two other venues. The stadium fit the needs of the time but now it is past its prime.

As anyone who has gone to a game there in the past decade can attest to it losing its appeal fast.

There isn't much you can do to renovate such a structure given the way it was built. They need a modern stadium with modern facilities and a better layout.

I will miss the occasional sexual exploits on the Jumbotron though..
 
mjl08 said:
No.

Do what you want to the interior, but keep the iconic dome. It’s second only to the CN Tower for famous postcard icons of the city.
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The problem is you can't do anything to the interior because it is essentially a concrete bunker.

The building itself needs some mechanical upgrades to its systems including the roof. I agree that the stadium is iconic but the fact is you can't just renovate it and call it good.

Maintaining that roof probably isn't cheap and eventually concrete does wear out.

Rogers was looking at renovating it actually but the fact they want to tear down and rebuild likely means the costs to renovate are too high to justify it.
 
I should hurry and pitch them my Gerrard Square site idea! Perfect spot for our very own Fenway/Comerica/Tigers/Wrigley style old-fashion ballpark!

Edit: Sorry, wrote "Comiskey", meant "Comerica"
 
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Tony said:
I should hurry and pitch them my Gerrard Square site idea! Perfect spot for our very own Fenway/Comiskey/Wrigley style old-fashion ballpark!
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I can see them putting it in the Port Lands. This would allow them to play at Rogers Centre while the new stadium is being built
 
The view over centre field in the future Gerrard/Leslieville/Riverside/Tropical Joes Park:
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To be honest, I think the Skydome (Rogers Centre) has more of a heritage impact then half of the heritage buildings they are saving these days. More storied history in the 31 years since its completion. There are obvious difficulties with keeping a stadium longer than 30+ years due to fan experience etc. But like some have said above, our skyline is partly famous for this dome. It would be a shame to lose it.
With that said it would be very difficult to keep it without a major sports team in there. Perhaps the CFL would be reintroduced into it, thought the real grass seems to be the main issue.

Just my 2 cents.
 
tstormers said:
To be honest, I think the Skydome (Rogers Centre) has more of a heritage impact then half of the heritage buildings they are saving these days. More storied history in the 31 years since its completion. There are obvious difficulties with keeping a stadium longer than 30+ years due to fan experience etc. But like some have said above, our skyline is partly famous for this dome. It would be a shame to lose it.
With that said it would be very difficult to keep it without a major sports team in there. Perhaps the CFL would be reintroduced into it, thought the real grass seems to be the main issue.

Just my 2 cents.
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The CFL will be lucky to survive into next year..
 
Richard White said:
I can see them putting it in the Port Lands. This would allow them to play at Rogers Centre while the new stadium is being built
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It would clearly be better for Rogers to build elsewhere so they are never 'homeless" but any new site would need to have very good transit links so PortLands might not be the best place.
 
Richard White said:
Excellent news. Rogers probably realised it was cost prohibitive to gently renovate the stadium and decided to rebuild it to modern standards.
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Basically came down to that. No matter how they would have renovated and reconfigured the 100 level, the playing field would still have had turf.
The word "intimate" was used quite a bit for the new stadium.
 
DSC said:
It would clearly be better for Rogers to build elsewhere so they are never 'homeless" but any new site would need to have very good transit links so PortLands might not be the best place.
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I think we should avoid the Quayside/Portlands. I am of two minds about this - SkyDome is iconic (I don't use that word lightly), but it also sucked horribly as a piece of the urban fabric, outmoded and bit of a waste of space for an area that can be used more intensively. I want to see the exact details of what they are proposing first though...

The other question is - how will it tie in with Oxford's Union Park on the other side of the tracks? There are some synergies to be had here.

AoD
 
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Wow! I never thought they would actually go through with this in my life time. Figured ownership would just follow Oakland's lead and tell us to live with it. This is big news! Even if you're not a Blue Jays/ baseball fan. This going to entirely change the downtown core.

I suppose the Blue Jays will be staying in Buffalo for a little while longer.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I think we should avoid the Quayside/Portlands. I am of two minds about this - SkyDome is iconic (I don't use that word lightly), but it also sucked horribly as a piece of the urban fabric, outmoded and bit of a waste of space for an area that can be used more intensively. I want to see the exact details of what they are proposing first though...

The other question is - how will it tie in with Oxford's Union Park on the other side of the tracks? There are some synergies to be had here.

AoD
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To go along with your points here. If they did decide to tear it down, one of the best things to do would be to turn it into a park. basically the city is screaming for parkland and this is the best location you could get without constructing it, like you would over the tracks, which I also would like to see happen. Some buildout with buildings could offset this cost, but if we had to lose it parkland would be the biggest benefit.
 
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