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

T.E.C.II said:
The problem with the stadium is that it quickly became obsolete once Camden Yards opened. After that, fans realized they prefered stadiums with a more old fashioned feel.
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As a baseball fan, I don't disagree. Skydome, after Tropicana, is possibly the worst stadium in the league. But does that justify the colossal waste of destroying the building? The cost of maintaining and renovating, especially if you include the environmental costs, can hardly equal the cost of demolition and rebuilding... can it? I certainly no expert.
 
Ward8 said:
As a baseball fan, I don't disagree. Skydome, after Tropicana, is possibly the worst stadium in the league. But does that justify the colossal waste of destroying the building? The cost of maintaining and renovating, especially if you include the environmental costs, can hardly equal the cost of demolition and rebuilding... can it? I certainly no expert.
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This has been looked at for years but the general consensus is that the amount of work required to properly renovate it would be expensive.

To do things like installing drainage for real turf, replacing the roof, reorganizing the seating and upgrading the player faciltiies would costs hundreds of millions of dollars. It would also require closing the stadium for quite some time.

Considering a proper renovation I believe was quoted at around 500 million dollars it makes more sense to tear down and rebuild to modern standards.

It may seem like big difference on paper but you get more value from building a new stadium for 500 million more than you would for renovating it.

Essentially the renovations would just be patching over the issues without really fixing the root cause of them
 
Richard White said:
The problem is that Canadian stadiums have certain weather related requirements that other places do not.
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How about Safeco Field, or Miller Park? Chase Field, Marlins Park, the new Rangers and Rays stadiums all take into account the weather requirements of the cities they're based in. Having the dome isn't the only issue with the current stadium.
 
marcus_a_j said:
Minneapolis’ weather is not much different than ours and they have a great open-air stadium.
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Please god no. Whatever happens please let it be a retractable roof. No stadium is worth the cold. I said Skydome is next to tropicana as one of the worst, but now, having reflected on my travels, I'd rather see a game at Sydome than New Yankee or Fenway any day. (Depending on the seats for Fenway, but it's mostly awful.) Camden is the best I've seen by far.
 
Richard White said:
That's true. Even still after so many years of a domed stadium I can't see the jays going back nor would the fans accept it.
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I’m sure many fans would accept it. Again, Minneapolis had a domed stadium and I doubt many fans there are missing the Metrodome.

On the flipside, Arizona and Texas teams built stadiums with retractable roofs because the weather gets too hot. While we’re used to day games in Toronto on the weekends, most games in these cities are played in the evening when it’s a bit cooler.
 
Ward8 said:
Please god no. Whatever happens please let it be a retractable roof. No stadium is worth the cold. I said Skydome is next to tropicana as one of the worst, but now, having reflected on my travels, I'd rather see a game at Sydome than New Yankee or Fenway any day. (Depending on the seats for Fenway, but it's mostly awful.) Camden is the best I've seen by far.
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Fenway is a dump in terms of services but full of nostalgia. The experience in and out of the stadium make up for the actually facility.

I rank PNC Park as the best stadium I’ve watched a game at and the one that I would like a SkyDome replacement to emulate. I welcome a replacement from a baseball experience perspective but I don’t have faith in Rogers to deliver. This is a real estate play first and foremost to unlock more developable land.
 
Richard White said:
A public/private partnership is what built the Skydome and I can see that being the case here.

It also gives the government a bit of control over what gets built where.
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Can't the city just say, 'no'? The city will have as much say over what gets built if they chip in money or not.

Personally, I think it would be a travesty for gov't to chip in $500M to a project like this and leave public realm projects like Raildeck Park on the drawing board.

I'm more indifferent if Rogers can do it without public subsidy. We spent half a billion on this building only 30 years ago. It seems absurdly wasteful to me.
 
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afransen said:
Can't the city just say, 'no'? The city will have as much say over what gets built if they chip in money or not.

Personally, I think it would be a travesty for gov't to chip in $500M to a project like this and leave public realm projects like Raildeck Park on the drawing board.

I'm more indifferent if Rogers can do it without public subsidy. We spent half a billion on this building only 30 years ago. It seems absurdly wasteful to me.
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I believe it said in the article that it would be privately funded.
 
afransen said:
Can't the city just say, 'no'? The city will have as much say over what gets built if they chip in money or not.

Personally, I think it would be a travesty for gov't to chip in $500M to a project like this and leave public realm projects like Raildeck Park on the drawing board.

I'm more indifferent if Rogers can do it without public subsidy. We spent half a billion on this building only 30 years ago. It seems absurdly wasteful to me.
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Speaking of the Rail Deck Park, I seem to recall Mark Shapiro hinting at one time that future plans for the stadium would be linked to what was going on with the park. Anyone remember this?
 
Richard White said:
Yes but how many concerts do you have on that scale in Toronto?
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Apparently there had been five (or six in total if you count the two nights for one of them) scheduled for 2020.
https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/tickets/concerts
In any case though, the subject is a bit of a red herring, since many MLB stadiums have a small number of concerts each summer.
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MLB Stadium Concert Guide | 2019 MLB All-Star Concerts | TickPick

There's more than baseball taking place across America's stadiums this Summer. Here is your MLB Concert Guide, the 2019 All Star Concerts.
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SkyDome did have a lot of concerts in various sized seating configurations, and year-round including the winter, during its first few years, but in recent years had been completely unused for the entire six-month baseball off-season, without any of the concerts, Disney On Ice, auto-racing, etc., it had in the 1990s.

Search for setlists: SkyDome (page 22) | setlist.fm

Search for setlists for concerts you've been to - there are plenty available!
www.setlist.fm www.setlist.fm
 
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Richard White said:
Just because you want to keep something does not mean you should. Yes the stadium is iconic but it is outliving it's usefulness in terms of being a viable baseball facility. It was designed at a time where you needed space for concerts, football and baseball in the same building. Astroturf ruled the day and as such it was never designed for real turf.

Yes you can keep it but the fact is that we need a new stadium for the Jays.

What will you do with it if nobody is using the facility? Slap a heritage designation on it and keep it empty forever because of the events that transpired there? Unlike Maple Leaf Gardens you cannot really do much with the facility other than events and the land is quite valuable.

Let's face the facts here. Players do not want to play here because of the Astroturf and the differences playing when the roof closed (the ball acts differently with a closed roof). If you want to attract top tier talent, you need a top tier stadium.
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Actually, you probably could do something like Maple Leaf Gardens with the building. Create a smaller stadium just below the dome that's raised above the current field. The roof would remain functional above the new field. Fill the rest of the space with retail, offices, and tourist attractions. Replace the hotel with a condo or mixed use building. This proposal would preserve heritage and would likely result in an economically viable landmark. Toronto's new MLB stadium would go elsewhere.
 
junctionist said:
Actually, you probably could do something like Maple Leaf Gardens with the building. Create a smaller stadium just below the dome that's raised above the current field. The roof would remain functional above the new field. Fill the rest of the space with retail, offices, and tourist attractions. Replace the hotel with a condo or mixed use building. This proposal would preserve heritage and would likely result in an economically viable landmark.

Toronto's new MLB stadium would go elsewhere. They could build a traditional waterfront brick stadium in the Port Lands to help spur revitalization there.
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I'm not sure how many people here have been in the bowels of the Rogers Centre but I have. I also used to work at and watched Hockey at the Gardens.

There is so much mechanical and bunker like spaces behind and under the stands. You can't really do much with the space given the shape. You also have the mechanical on the roof.

Maple Leaf Gardens worked because it was a large, cavernous square building without a mechanical roof. Circular stadiums with vast open pockets and a mechanical roof don't work as well.
 
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