Huntington Park, the new Class AAA ballpark in Columbus, has a unique batter’s eye in center field that disappears when the Clippers aren’t playing.
The $70 million, 10,000-seat stadium is in the heart of the city’s Arena District. Center field is situated on one of the marquee corners within the mixed-use development, said Brad Schrock, a principal with 360 Architecture and the park’s primary designer.
Thus, the plan was to design an open venue where thousands of visitors to the area’s other attractions could peer into the downtown park during the 295 days a year when there is no baseball.
It took a while to figure it out, but 360’s team came up with a mechanical system to remove the batter’s eye, a green mesh screen that acts as the hitter’s background in straightaway center. For Clippers games, pulleys and gears raise the screen nearly to the top of seven flagpoles, Schrock said.
“Anybody who has designed a baseball stadium has struggled with the batter’s eye, because we all know it has to be there during the game,” Schrock said. “But we didn’t want to create a big blank wall.”
The background for batters at Huntington Park is a
mesh screen that’s raised on flagpoles during
games (above) and lowered at other times.
Schrock did early design work for the Oakland A’s Cisco Field project at the same time he was designing Huntington Park. Those initial drawings incorporated a similar removable batter’s eye.
The operating technology would have been different in Fremont, Calif., one site the A’s considered before talks broke down on a final site. Initial drawings contained a huge plaza beyond center field, and on non-game days, the batter’s eye would fold to the sides or be tucked up under a scoreboard bar to provide views into the park, Schrock said.
COVER 2: The Lingerie Football League could not find a place to play in the Atlanta market, in part, after The Arena at Gwinnett Center decided women in bikinis playing tackle football did not fit with the facility’s programming philosophy.
“It’s more of a big-city thing,” said Preston Williams, SMG’s general manager at the arena in Duluth, Ga., 25 miles northeast of Atlanta.
But at Sears Centre, a midsize arena in suburban Chicago playing host to the league’s first game Sept. 4, it is just another event, according to Jeff Bowen, the arena’s executive director.
The Ryan Cos., the private developer that owns the 11,000-seat arena in Hoffman Estates, had initial concerns about the content, Bowen said. He assured ownership it’s no more risque than the scantily clad women competing at WWE events.
“We have had two complaints,” Bowen said. “Everybody else is accepting it for what it is, and if they don’t like it, they don’t have to go.”
In downtown Atlanta, privately owned and operated Philips Arena had solid bookings for the two Friday nights the league requested, and there was little schedule flexibility, said Bob Williams, president of the NBA and NHL facility.
Williams indicated he would have strongly considered doing a deal. “I would have talked to our owner [Atlanta Spirit] prior to booking it, but unlike a public venue with no private debt, we have a big nut to service, and we have to maintain a mercenary mentality,” he said.
As of last week, the lingerie league had leases confirmed for nine of its 10 teams, including four major league facilities, and continued its search for a venue for the New England franchise.
The league could add Charlotte and Philadelphia this fall, but rent deals would have to be done by the end of May for those teams to play in 2009, spokesman Stephon McMillen said.
Wachovia Center in Philly, operated by Global Spectrum, is not under consideration. “A few Global Spectrum venues have had preliminary conversations,” Chief Operating Officer John Page said slyly, “but nothing too revealing.”
Don Muret can be reached at dmuret@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
