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Natural Grass in the Rogers Centre/Possibility of a New Baseball Stadium in Toronto

TOareaFan said:
You think digging under an existing stadium would be much less than that? I am no engineer but I think you would have to do something to hold the whole thing up....no?....and, again, sightlines?
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I'm pretty sure it was Paul godfrey who was talking about it. He's no engineer but I'm sure rogers must have had someone consult them on it. In fact i am pretty sure the Jon bon Jovi group must have had some faith in the idea if they were bidding for a team. The only other way the government is going to help anyone build again is if toronto hosts the olympics which they are not even bidding for.
 
sixrings said:
I'm pretty sure it was Paul godfrey who was talking about it.
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If Paul Godfrey was talking about it I am sure we could find it somewhere on the interweb....he's no shrinking violet

He's no engineer but I'm sure rogers must have had someone consult them on it. In fact i am pretty sure the Jon bon Jovi group must have had some faith in the idea if they were bidding for a team.
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Did they ever confirm that they were going to use Rogers Centre long term? As far as I know they never actually confirmed they would move the team to Toronto if successful. Even if a move was in the cards......the nature of the lease at the Ralph gave them, what, 8 years to plan for a new stadium?
 
Rogers has a ontario monopoly but those are some deep pockets to be able to afford a 1 billion dollar franchise and then another 1 billion stadium
 
ehlow said:
Dundas West & Bloor would obviously be a great location in terms of transit, but is there enough room there for a new stadium?

I always figured Downsview would be the place to build a new stadium since there's a lot of room and it's surrounded by industrial areas so there might be less resistance. Looking at it now on Google Maps though, there actually isn't that much room left unless it takes over the park or industrial areas to the north, or the airport.
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I did some preliminary Google Earth measuring a while ago on that, and it would likely need to have the upper left field deck over top of the tracks, but the field itself would fit, yes. It wouldn't be all that dissimilar to Safeco Field in Seattle, where there's rail tracks running under one side of the stadium.

I've thought of Downsview too, but I've always thought that that was more suited to an NFL stadium or an Olympic Park than a baseball stadium. Maybe I'm a Neoclassisist in this respect, but I like ballparks that are in urban areas, not surrounded by parking lots. Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Camden Yards, etc, just have such an atmosphere around them, in large part because of the neighbourhoods they're in.

ChesterCopperpot said:
Getting away from the suitability of the Rogers Centre for an NFL team - where at Bloor and Dundas are we talking about? The SE corner?

R5dUbUY.jpg
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Yes, the southeast corner. It would take out both the building on the corner and the shopping plaza.
 
Gweed i like your Dundas west site. Maybe giraffe will be built tall enough to take a look in.
 
gweed123 said:
It wouldn't be all that dissimilar to Safeco Field in Seattle, where there's rail tracks running under one side of the stadium.
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Can't forget the Barclays Center in Brooklyn!
 
TOareaFan said:
Next to "literally" I think monopoly is literally the most misused word in our dictionary today ;)
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That may be true TOareaFan but I am pretty sure you knew what I meant and really wanted a reply to make your point known... Anyways I too like downtown stadium sites but Rogers Centre is brutal for baseball other than on the extremely rare full nights.
 
someMidTowner said:
Can't forget the Barclays Center in Brooklyn!
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Took the subway to Barclays. Very nice.... Took the subway to Yankee stadium too.... And took the Subway to MSG. There are always going to be some people who drive. However with enough transit options it makes it much more manageable.... I did drive to Yankee stadium once. It was insane to leave. Took about a hour to leave the parking lot.
 
sixrings said:
That may be true TOareaFan but I am pretty sure you knew what I meant and really wanted a reply to make your point known...
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nope.....thought you actually knew of a monopoly they had.

Anyways I too like downtown stadium sites but Rogers Centre is brutal for baseball other than on the extremely rare full nights.
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See....what you said there is that attendance at Blue Jays games makes it brutal for baseball.....not the stadium itself. The really ironic thing about Rogers Centre is that what makes it absolutely horrible for football/soccer is that the seating was designed primarily for baseball. Earlier on I referred to seat rake......at Rogers Centre it is set for Baseball.....it is why for football games the lower bowl seats are awful....for soccer it is abysmal (eg....my seats at BMO were selected by me with a rudimentary knowledge of stadium design and seat rake.....for that reason I chose midfield seats on the west side in row 16.....best view in the house......on the rare ocassions that TFC has played at RC....I just give the seats assigned to me to someone who does not care about seeing the game and I buy 200 level seats.......the rake/ptich of the seats means that 16th row at midfield loses about 25% of the viewing area of the pitch).....baseball fans may not find RC ideal....but it is worse for the other sports.
 
First off, anywhere outside downtown is a non starter IMO.

After having easy and plentiful access to mass transit via Union, anything outside of the core wouldn't work - even the exhibition grounds wouldn't work IMO.

Also, neighbourhood stadiums are great, but usually, they were either built when nimbyism didn't really exist (Fenway and Wrigley) or they had the luxury of a parking lot to build on right beside the stadium (Pirates). I think the Bloor Dundas location is an appealing option, but the nimby's would more than likely kill it.

Best I can think of for downtown is the LCBO lands, or the 1-7 Yonge parcel (but that would more than likely mean losing the Star building.) And I'm not sure if either of those lots are big enough anyways.

I've got two other crazy suggestions though.

1. Toronto Islands? Sorta cool, but the ferries would be a PITA.

2. Right where the Skydome is now? Have them play a month in MTL, month in Van, month on the East Coast, etc. for one/two seasons. Other alternative (but prohibitively expensive) is build a temp stadium somewhere while redoing the Skydome.

Hopefully the Jays can pull off grass in the dome and possibly a reno of it too to make it better for baseball only - but they should start looking for plots of land now for the inevitable move that will need to come.
 
junior43 said:
First off, anywhere outside downtown is a non starter IMO.

After having easy and plentiful access to mass transit via Union, anything outside of the core wouldn't work - even the exhibition grounds wouldn't work IMO.

Also, neighbourhood stadiums are great, but usually, they were either built when nimbyism didn't really exist (Fenway and Wrigley) or they had the luxury of a parking lot to build on right beside the stadium (Pirates). I think the Bloor Dundas location is an appealing option, but the nimby's would more than likely kill it.

Best I can think of for downtown is the LCBO lands, or the 1-7 Yonge parcel (but that would more than likely mean losing the Star building.) And I'm not sure if either of those lots are big enough anyways.
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I was just going to suggest the LCBO lands, but it does seem small. The only other downtown-ish site that I can think of would be the old Victory Mills site at Parliament / Lakeshore, which was sold 4 or 5 years ago. It is probably just as far as Exhibition Grounds would be, though.
 
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