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

Ironically, the one place where you have the space and transit to put a temporary 25k seat stadium is just south of BMO Field.
 
Here’s an example of a 12,500-seat MLB stadium used for exactly one game:

Fort Bragg Field – BaseballParks.com

baseballparks.com baseballparks.com

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If you scaled it up to 25k seats and attached it to BMO field for the concourses it could work for a few seasons. Add a permanent building for team facilities that can be repurposed after the field gets torn down.
 
This was also built for 2 years at Hastings Park in Vancouver that was used by the Whitecaps and BC Lions when BC Place was getting its makeover / new roof.
Seats 28,000 and cost $15m

soccer-mls-empire-stadium-postcard.jpg
 
Re Monster trucks. I suspect (though I may have heard it through the grapevines) that Rogers moved away from monster trucks due to concerns about the turf. Rogers prefers to leave the turf down semi permanently and just leave it there as consistently pulling up and laying down the sheets (or squares) of turf can affect it, for examples the little rubber pellets placed in the turf blades to provide bounce move around and become distributed un evenly. It's one of the reasons the Argos were pushed out because turf had to be removed to facilitate to stands rotating as well as covering the dirt infield, pitchers mound, and home plate area. As I recall the monster truck shows also used the football stands configuration and I suspect Rogers just didn't want to deal with it. Concerts, on the other hand, can easily be handled with the stands in baseball mode and (likely) plywood or plastic covering the turf. However I also think that there was expectations of imminent renovations which resulted in lowered interest in booking shows during the off season.

Re. Other shows though. It still hosts a number of non baseball events, mostly concerts, however the shows are generally during the summer. It would appear the last events hosted there during the "off" or winter season was 2013. Perhaps it is cost prohibitive to try to heat the place to a comfortable level, rendering it more suitable to trade shows or fairs (Auto show, winter carnival) where keeping people warm is not much of a concern.
 
Mark Shapiro weighed in on the news the team was building a new stadium.

www.sportsnet.ca

Pandemic has overtaken any new stadium plans for Shapiro, Blue Jays - Sportsnet.ca

Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro addresses the reports that came out earlier about them looking into a new stadium, says right now it's in his windshield, instead they're still working on updates to the Rogers Centre.
www.sportsnet.ca www.sportsnet.ca

Basically, he confirms what Rogers has publicly said, that plans have been put on hold due to the pandemic. But he did mention that the Rogers Centre will be getting a new field next season.
 
ChesterCopperpot said:
This was also built for 2 years at Hastings Park in Vancouver that was used by the Whitecaps and BC Lions when BC Place was getting its makeover / new roof.
Seats 28,000 and cost $15m

soccer-mls-empire-stadium-postcard.jpg
Click to expand...
Something like this for the Jays would be a good solution if they build a new stadium on the Skydome site. There's simply no better site than the current one.

marcus_a_j said:
Minneapolis’ weather is not much different than ours and they have a great open-air stadium.
Click to expand...
Minneapolis is like a slightly warmer Winnipeg. It has a more extreme climate than Toronto, colder in the winter and warmer in the summer. If they can have an open air MLB stadium, so can Toronto. Although I'd be shocked if we end up with anything other than a retractable roof.
 
There's a profile/interview piece on Bob McCown in the Globe where he talks about a plan he pitched to the federal government over a decade ago for a 'stadium district' at Downsview.

I'm not a fan of his or the idea but it's interesting to read about nonetheless.

"Backed by a friend, a former pro sports owner with access to tens of billions of dollars of capital, he pitched the federal government on a development that would use the entire Downsview Airport site in the north end of Toronto for a new stadium district. It would include a baseball stadium, an arena for a second Toronto NHL team, a football stadium for an expansion NFL team, a high-performance sports school, a large central park, retail, and housing for 60,000 residents. Oh, and a monorail to service the entire, carless property. And a moat – for sailing in the summer and skating in the winter, with Tim Hortons placed every mile or so, for hot chocolate pitstops. They drafted Moshe Safdie, the iconic Montreal architect perhaps best known for Expo 67′s Habitat apartment project; so what if he’d never designed a stadium before?"

Here's a link to the full, paywalled, article. Warning, it contains Bob McCown.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Bob McCown determined to move on from Rogers and put Toronto ‘on the map’

Podcasts, wineries, documentaries and more – Bob McCown has big plans
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com
 
Tony said:
There's a profile/interview piece on Bob McCown in the Globe where he talks about a plan he pitched to the federal government over a decade ago for a 'stadium district' at Downsview.

I'm not a fan of his or the idea but it's interesting to read about nonetheless.

"Backed by a friend, a former pro sports owner with access to tens of billions of dollars of capital, he pitched the federal government on a development that would use the entire Downsview Airport site in the north end of Toronto for a new stadium district. It would include a baseball stadium, an arena for a second Toronto NHL team, a football stadium for an expansion NFL team, a high-performance sports school, a large central park, retail, and housing for 60,000 residents. Oh, and a monorail to service the entire, carless property. And a moat – for sailing in the summer and skating in the winter, with Tim Hortons placed every mile or so, for hot chocolate pitstops. They drafted Moshe Safdie, the iconic Montreal architect perhaps best known for Expo 67′s Habitat apartment project; so what if he’d never designed a stadium before?"

Here's a link to the full, paywalled, article. Warning, it contains Bob McCown.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Bob McCown determined to move on from Rogers and put Toronto ‘on the map’

Podcasts, wineries, documentaries and more – Bob McCown has big plans
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com
Click to expand...

I
 
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I remember that talk of a stadium district many did not think it was a serious proposal as it would have cost 10 billion plus.
 
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