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

[Woodbridge_Heights]

We can barely get corporate bay and king financial district money at the games as it is. You think moving it to downsview park is going to work. This is the problem. Even with the perfect location the jays don’t attract massive crowds. You are betting a lot on a open air stadium to risk making up for the area.

- I never said Downsview would work, in fact I specifically noted that transit access would be a issue for any new location vis a vis the current location.
- Baseball has never been about selling out the building 81 times a season (at least not in the way that NHL./NBA/NFL can still sell out for bad teams). Rogers Centre is the last of a generation of buildings that hosted both football and baseball (which meant capacities that were too high for baseball and too small for footbal), most new stadiums have been built in the 35k to 45k range and that's what the aim should be here, be it a renovation or new build.
- Open air in toronto is a complete non starter. Sure there's open air stadiums in Minneapolis, Detroit and Cleveland but I believe that Toronto's baseball culture would not support an open air stadium.

 

[T.E.C.II]

There is a feeling amongst Shapiro and Rogers that the Rogers Centre is an outdated building. As positive as he is about the renovations being made, Shapiro has been pretty clear that this is all a temporary solution. Which is probably why they went with the cheapest, less complicated proposal. The renovations buy them some more time before they must make a decision.

You can hate it all you want, but the Blue Jays will very likely be playing in a new ballpark in another decade or so.

 

[JMSRead]

I agree, I don't think Downsview is a good option. But the 'Jays don't draw' thing has really been proven incorrect since 2015, at least when the team is good. Just did a quick skim and the Jays have had 19 games of 40,000+ crowds this year. And I'm guessing they'll get several more down the stretch. They'll probably finish 8th or 9th in MLB attendance by the end of the year.

2025 MLB Attendance - Major League Baseball - ESPN

Check out this 2025 report of MLB attendance sortable by both baseball stadium and team.

www.espn.com

We can barely get corporate bay and king financial district money at the games as it is. You think moving it to downsview park is going to work. This is the problem. Even with the perfect location the jays don’t attract massive crowds. You are betting a lot on a open air stadium to risk making up for the area.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I agree, I don't think Downsview is a good option. But the 'Jays don't draw' thing has really been proven incorrect since 2015, at least when the team is good. Just did a quick skim and the Jays have had 19 games of 40,000+ crowds this year. And I'm guessing they'll get several more down the stretch. They'll probably finish 8th or 9th in MLB attendance by the end of the year.

2025 MLB Attendance - Major League Baseball - ESPN

Check out this 2025 report of MLB attendance sortable by both baseball stadium and team.

www.espn.com

By contrast, everyone agrees Camden Yards is the gold standard for the post-Skydome era, right? They're celebrating their 30th anniversary and their team is having a Cinderella year, in a surprising pennant race. Last night, against the team just ahead of them in the playoff race, they had 8,411 people there. They have the 7th-worst attendance in the major leagues.

Read that again - fewer than 8,500 people, in September, against the Jays. The weather was 73 degrees and overcast; yeah, it was delayed 15 mins for possible rain but so what? When's the last time the Jays had fewer than 10,000 in their joke of an outdated stadium? Maybe when they were tanking a few years ago?

Amusingly, Cleveland (leading their division; newer retro-style park than Baltimore) is 4th worst and Tampa (ahead of Toronto for the wildcard and closing on the division-leading Yankees) are 3rd worst (though, in fairness, their park is obviously absolute trash).

Anyway, I'm sure Shapiro and the Jays want a new stadium but they're in a perfect trap as their current stadium isn't falling apart enough or poorly located enough to make it an easy choice. We'll see if he's still around if and when they actually get to that point but I have my fingers crossed that the second round of renos will do even more to make the park quite satisfactory for another 10-15 years.

 

[milkycontent]

Step 1: Complete the Ontario Line
Step 2: Build a temporary stadium at one of two locations:
a) Exhibition Place parking lot 2 (or maybe on the footprint of Better Living Centre?)
b) Booth Yards (next door to East Harbour)
Step 3: Demolish Rogers Centre and build a permanent new stadium in the same spot

Those sites might be the only ones that would have the transit access and big enough parcels of land to make it work in the short term, but the current Rogers Centre location is the ideal spot.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Has anyone else built a temporary major league baseball stadium of that scale? You're talking about something that would be needed for several years.
Something that MLB would need to approve (and would have to meet their standards for turf, lighting etc. etc.) and the City would need to approve use of the Ex lands.

It sounds kinda like a nice idea (and I'd assume temporary facilities are being looked at as options) but I don't know that that this particularly practical.
Even if using a temporary facility, you'd think they'd want to find something they could upgrade rather than building from scratch. I can't think of a university facility or even anything built for Pan-Am that would qualify, though.
Frankly, not that I'm supporting this idea, but moving to Buffalo probably makes at least as much sense as building a whole new MLB-quality stadium with a 5-year shelf life....and if that's the best-case scenario, I'd think using a temporary stadium while they rebuild onsite is pretty low on their list. of options. (I mean, how long would it take just to demolish the Rogers Centre given the surrounding land uses? They won't be dynamiting it like some old Vegas casino, that's for sure.)

 

[Translude15]

We can barely get corporate bay and king financial district money at the games as it is. You think moving it to downsview park is going to work. This is the problem. Even with the perfect location the jays don’t attract massive crowds. You are betting a lot on a open air stadium to risk making up for the area.

That's not true at all. TD Clubhouse, or the premium 200 level seats behind home plate, are always filled, largely with corporate types. If anything, the 100 level reno will add more seating areas like that to cater specifically to the Financial District crowd. Currently, there isn't a whole lot of premium seating for them to use.

There is a feeling amongst Shapiro and Rogers that the Rogers Centre is an outdated building. As positive as he is about the renovations being made, Shapiro has been pretty clear that this is all a temporary solution. Which is probably why they went with the cheapest, less complicated proposal. The renovations buy them some more time before they must make a decision.

You can hate it all you want, but the Blue Jays will very likely be playing in a new ballpark in another decade or so.

I got roasted for suggesting this a few years back, but if the Jays/Rogers are serious about building a new ballpark, Lamport/Liberty Village is the best spot to do it IMO. First, the municpal land lost would be swapped with Dome land and any approvals for a new stadium in LV would surely include public parkland and pedestrian & cycling provisions. Second, although not vacant, the whole tract of land that Lamport sits on, and even the area south of Liberty St, are developable, with many buildings still containing vast parking lots. Third, the incoming rapid transit links make too much sense from a connectivity standpoint, especially for GO riders and those coming immediately from downtown: Exhibition Station upgrades/GO RER, Ontario line Exhibition stop, and the Liberty Village GO station. Anything built would be no more than 40,000 total capacity, and if they really wanted to make it a small and as intimate a footprint as possible, they could go as low as 38,000.

 

[3Dementia]

I got roasted for suggesting this a few years back, but if the Jays/Rogers are serious about building a new ballpark, Lamport/Liberty Village is the best spot to do it IMO. First, the municpal land lost would be swapped with Dome land and any approvals for a new stadium in LV would surely include public parkland and pedestrian & cycling provisions. Second, although not vacant, the whole tract of land that Lamport sits on, and even the area south of Liberty St, are developable, with many buildings still containing vast parking lots. Third, the incoming rapid transit links make too much sense from a connectivity standpoint, especially for GO riders and those coming immediately from downtown: Exhibition Station upgrades/GO RER, Ontario line Exhibition stop, and the Liberty Village GO station. Anything built would be no more than 40,000 total capacity, and if they really wanted to make it a small and as intimate a footprint as possible, they could go as low as 38,000.

I was at that barbecue but I was not among the roasters...

I thought the Lamport site was (is) rather brilliant and the connectivity you must have seen in your crystal ball, make the idea even better.

 

[Amare]

- Downsview park
- There's plenty of open land in the port lands (There's a plot of land S of Lake Shore/Gardiner, W of Cherry/Lake Shore, N of the Keating channel, and E of the toronto harbour cruises dock. It's roughly the similar size as the current site of the Rogers Centre)
- Any location can be used provided that the individual lots can be assembled.

The issue with any possible location is that it wouldn't have the transit accessibility that Rogers Centre currently has.

I'm talking about no vacant land being available around the Rogers Centre in the downtown core, not at Downsview Park or the Portlands.

And before you know it, the Downsview Lands will be gone as well. The city isn't protecting anything there, because Toronto doesnt plan for things like this.

 

[many7695]

I'm talking about no vacant land being available around the Rogers Centre in the downtown core, not at Downsview Park or the Portlands.

And before you know it, the Downsview Lands will be gone as well. The city isn't protecting anything there, because Toronto doesnt plan for things like this.

There is no way any stadium should ever be build at downsview land it could possibly be the worst decision and location ever made in sports, I used to live in that area, it’s so awful location to put anything, the best location it’s where it is at but that’s only if u can build a new park at the current location or a massive renovation to remake every inch of that decrepit building

 

[C-mac]

There is a feeling amongst Shapiro and Rogers that the Rogers Centre is an outdated building. As positive as he is about the renovations being made, Shapiro has been pretty clear that this is all a temporary solution. Which is probably why they went with the cheapest, less complicated proposal. The renovations buy them some more time before they must make a decision.

You can hate it all you want, but the Blue Jays will very likely be playing in a new ballpark in another decade or so.

This.

 

[C-mac]

Step 1: Complete the Ontario Line
Step 2: Build a temporary stadium at one of two locations:
a) Exhibition Place parking lot 2 (or maybe on the footprint of Better Living Centre?)
b) Booth Yards (next door to East Harbour)
Step 3: Demolish Rogers Centre and build a permanent new stadium in the same spot

Those sites might be the only ones that would have the transit access and big enough parcels of land to make it work in the short term, but the current Rogers Centre location is the ideal spot.

There's not a snowballs chance in hell some kind temp stadium will be erected. It's either more major reno's to skydome done during off season, or they find a different spot and build a new stadium

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

That's not true at all. TD Clubhouse, or the premium 200 level seats behind home plate, are always filled, largely with corporate types. If anything, the 100 level reno will add more seating areas like that to cater specifically to the Financial District crowd. Currently, there isn't a whole lot of premium seating for them to use.



I got roasted for suggesting this a few years back, but if the Jays/Rogers are serious about building a new ballpark, Lamport/Liberty Village is the best spot to do it IMO. First, the municpal land lost would be swapped with Dome land and any approvals for a new stadium in LV would surely include public parkland and pedestrian & cycling provisions. Second, although not vacant, the whole tract of land that Lamport sits on, and even the area south of Liberty St, are developable, with many buildings still containing vast parking lots. Third, the incoming rapid transit links make too much sense from a connectivity standpoint, especially for GO riders and those coming immediately from downtown: Exhibition Station upgrades/GO RER, Ontario line Exhibition stop, and the Liberty Village GO station. Anything built would be no more than 40,000 total capacity, and if they really wanted to make it a small and as intimate a footprint as possible, they could go as low as 38,000.

Wow I thought that the Lamport site was too small but it's actually a similar size to the Rogers Centre footprint. And the walk from Exhibition GO is shorter than Union to RC. Kudos this is a good idea!

 

[Translude15]

Wow I thought that the Lamport site was too small but it's actually a similar size to the Rogers Centre footprint. And the walk from Exhibition GO is shorter than Union to RC. Kudos this is a good idea!

I think it makes a lot of sense given the (relatively) central location, links to current and future transit, not to mention the lot sizes combined can accommodate an MLB sized stadium, albeit a smaller, more intimate one a la PNC Park. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest the sudden pivot of the original Relief Line plans to a more extensive Ontario Line with a multimodal transit hub at Exhibition/Liberty Village aren't synchronous with massive redevelopment plans within Liberty Village.

To add to my theory, I also think it's interesting that the Toronto Carpet Factory, sitting right beside the Lamport site, is not dissimilar to Camden Yard's B&O warehouse in Baltimore which was incorporated into the stadium's design, including pedestrian only Eutaw Street, that blends into the facility on game days. Given baseball's propensity to prefer retro-classic ballparks, to me, it feels like that's the play Rogers, Shapiro and co. are gunning for.

 

[Richard White]

I was at the Elton John Concert last night and I was amazed by how bad the acoustics are there.

We were in section 210 and you could hear the echo within the stadium. The speakers were overwhelming (they are 10 feet apart on the 200 level).

Great show, not such great acoustics.