The Oakland A’s have recently announced plans to build a next-generation urban ballpark at Howard Terminal that “returns the baseball experience to the roots of the sport, while reimagining the ballpark anew.”
The overall design takes on a “ballpark within a park” design as the stadium will be tucked into its surrounding urban setting. The square block of the ballpark district will sit within Oakland’s greater urban fabric. The ballparks concourses will be transformed into streets and its concessions into restaurants.
The new stadium has a planned capacity of about 34,000 people, which includes fixed seats and general admission experience areas. To create the most intimate experience possible, the seats and general admission locations will be arranged in the closest configuration possible to home plate.
An elevated park will wrap and frame the bowl and connect the stadium to the waterfront, and an elevated tree-lined park will frame the stadium on all sides and dip down to meet the public square and open the field to water and city views. This park will connect a collection of social spaces that will be open on both game days and non-game days. The new stadium and park is being privately financed and slated for completion in 2023.
Additionally, the team will take on a second project to repurpose the current Coliseum site by pulling the adjacent neighborhood fabric into the site and create new economic, cultural, and recreational opportunities. The preliminary plans include a large park that will be surrounded by new housing, which will include affordable housing, a skills center, community gathering space, office and retail developments, and restaurants. The Oracle Arena will be repurposed as a concert and cultural events center and the original Coliseum baseball diamond will be preserved and included as part of the park.
See Also: Watch a time-lapse of Wrigley Field’s most recent phase of renovations
The A’s will now begin a “120-Day Action Plan” that will focus on gathering additional community feedback; beginning the environmental review process at Howard Terminal; negotiating an agreement with the Port of Oakland; developing a framework with public officials for the Coliseum redevelopment; and developing a framework for an economic and community benefits agreement.
Related Stories
| May 25, 2011
Olympic site spurs green building movement in UK
London's environmentally friendly 2012 Olympic venues are fuelling a green building movement in Britain.
| Apr 11, 2011
Wind turbines to generate power for new UNT football stadium
The University of North Texas has received a $2 million grant from the State Energy Conservation Office to install three wind turbines that will feed the electrical grid and provide power to UNT’s new football stadium.
| Apr 5, 2011
U.S. sports industry leads charge in meeting environmental challenges
The U.S. sports industry generates $414 billion annually. The amount of energy being consumed is not often thought of by fans when heading to the stadium or ballpark, but these stadiums, parks, and arenas use massive quantities of energy. Now sports leagues in North America are making a play to curb the waste and score environmental gains.
| Mar 25, 2011
Qatar World Cup may feature carbon-fiber ‘clouds’
Engineers at Qatar University’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering are busy developing what they believe could act as artificial “clouds,” man-made saucer-type structures suspended over a given soccer stadium, working to shield tens of thousands of spectators from suffocating summer temperatures that regularly top 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
| Mar 11, 2011
University of Oregon scores with new $227 million basketball arena
The University of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena opened January 13 with a men’s basketball game against USC where the Ducks beat the Trojans, 68-62. The $227 million arena, which replaces the school’s 84-year-old McArthur Court, has a seating bowl pitched at 36 degrees to replicate the close-to-the-action feel of the smaller arena it replaced, although this new one accommodates 12,364 fans.
| Mar 11, 2011
Community sports center in Nashville features NCAA-grade training facility
A multisport community facility in Nashville featuring a training facility that will meet NCAA Division I standards is being constructed by St. Louis-based Clayco and Chicago-based Pinnacle.
| Mar 11, 2011
Slam dunk for the University of Nebraska’s basketball arena
The University of Nebraska men’s and women’s basketball programs will have a new home beginning in 2013. Designed by the DLR Group, the $344 million West Haymarket Civic Arena in Lincoln, Neb., will have 16,000 seats, suites, club amenities, loge, dedicated locker rooms, training rooms, and support space for game operations.
| Feb 23, 2011
London 2012: What Olympic Park looks like today
London 2012 released a series of aerial images that show progress at Olympic Park, including a completed roof on the stadium (where seats are already installed), tile work at the aquatic centre, and structural work complete on more than a quarter of residential projects at Olympic Village.