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

[sixrings]

I just don’t understand the reasoning for cramming more seats in. They can’t fill the seats they have. Why wouldn’t you rather have less comfortable seats and have the stadium more full than a whole bunch of smaller seats which you can’t fill and annoy people on the size so now they don’t come back.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I mean, they have just completed a massive renovation of the stadium so I don't know by what logic they would "keep focusing on the stadium experience."
Obviously undertaking this was one the things Shaprio was hired to do.
Equally obviously, it's a safe bet they don't want attendance to tank because of a bad team now that they spent all that money fixing the stadium and creating an environment designed to generate more revenue from the same building.

I'll be perfectly happy if the GM is gone after the season but I think it's a stretch to suggest the team has gotten worse because they (so to speak) took their eye off the ball and directed resources to one thing and not the other. The new home plate seats aren't the reason Ohtani didn't sign here and they didn't trade Moreno because of the Corona patio, for example.

I just don’t understand the reasoning for cramming more seats in. They can’t fill the seats they have. Why wouldn’t you rather have less comfortable seats and have the stadium more full than a whole bunch of smaller seats which you can’t fill and annoy people on the size so now they don’t come back.

Not sure what you're referencing. The capacity of the stadium has gone from roughly 50k to roughly 39k.
Definitely not more seats being crammed in...

 

[JBR]

I just don’t understand the reasoning for cramming more seats in. They can’t fill the seats they have. Why wouldn’t you rather have less comfortable seats and have the stadium more full than a whole bunch of smaller seats which you can’t fill and annoy people on the size so now they don’t come back.

There’s about 10k less seats now then there was pre-reno so what are you even talking about?

 

[Richard White]

There’s about 10k less seats now then there was pre-reno so what are you even talking about?

I believe the reference is to all the "fan experience" areas that they're shoe horniness in everywhere.

On top of the dugout, 500 level, etc. They are putting in viewing platforms and seats wherever they can to increase overall capacity.

I believe at one point the Rogers Centre had a max capacity of just over 50000 patrons.

 

[ImmenselyMental]

I believe the reference is to all the "fan experience" areas that they're shoe horniness in everywhere.

On top of the dugout, 500 level, etc. They are putting in viewing platforms and seats wherever they can to increase overall capacity.

I believe at one point the Rogers Centre had a max capacity of just over 50000 patrons.

I think @sixrings meant in order to accommodate the new common spaces, they had to sacrifice the amount of space allocated to each seat. However, before the renovations, the stadium had a capacity of 49,282 for baseball, and more than that for other events.

The current seating capacity of 39,150 is lower than most MLB stadiums, but its land area also appears to be on the low side based on satellite imagery.

As for filling the stadium to capacity, the Blue Jays' performance is definitely an important variable, but I also consider the sports Toronto cares about.

 

[sixrings]

I was referring to leg and elbow room. I’d rather have larger chairs like the vip movie theatre and less of these social areas to reduce the size of the building. Than social areas with remaining seats of poorer than previous leg and elbow room.

I say that as someone who isn’t even fat. I can’t imagine going to a game overweight which is half our population.

 

[jje1000]

Interesting/ominous article from Macleans regarding Roger's increasing stake in MLSE:

When Ed Rogers Buys the Leafs, He’ll Reshape Toronto​

The telecom will build stadiums, condos and real estate.

This year, Ed Rogers will buy out Bell’s stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment—and, by extension, the Toronto Maple Leafs—for $4.7 billion. It’s a massive shakeup in the world of Canadian sports and, in the year to come, he’ll be working furiously behind the scenes to make his investment pay off. He won’t do it through playoffs or sportscasts, but by leveraging the new golden goose of sports business: real estate. The consequences could reshape Toronto entirely.

With the Toronto Maple Leafs, one of the most prized assets in all of North American professional sports, Ed Rogers now has the vehicle to unlock that kind of value. Since at least 2019, Rogers has been in talks with Brookfield Asset Management’s infrastructure arm to possibly replace the Rogers Centre with a new, smaller stadium and transform the surrounding land into a mixed-use district. If the company is smart, it will want to build condos, retail, movie theatres and everything else people want. Ed has the vision. Now we’ll see how he executes it.

In the next year, the back-end work will begin on the MLSE purchase. Rogers will consolidate its assets. As many financial analysts have pointed out, Rogers doesn’t have the $4.7 billion to buy out Bell’s MLSE assets. It will need to raise capital, and it can do that by spinning off Rogers Sports and Media as a separate IPO and putting all the teams there.

Without the sports and media arm, Rogers will focus on its core telecoms business. Meanwhile, the entertainment company can do its own thing. With private equity pouring in, it will have the spending power to apply huge amounts of pressure on municipal and provincial governments. The city of Toronto, for instance, leases BMO Field to MLSE for Toronto FC and the Toronto Argonauts. Owning two of the stadium’s three tenants, Rogers will have an enormous amount of leverage over the city and the province about how to use the land around Exhibition Place: the perfect location for yet another new sports–real estate complex.

https://macleans.ca/the-year-ahead/when-ed-rogers-buys-the-leafs-hell-reshape-toronto/

 

[Mihairokov]

I guess one question: Where do the Jays play when they're demo-ing SkyDome? Montreal? Vancouver? Dunedin? Buffalo? All of them?

The problem with comparing Bremner with the Ottawa or Edmonton districts is that, and others can feel free to correct me on this, those two cities really lacked central, core, mixed-use areas in those particular spots, and so Lansdowne and Edmonton were filling in a big hole in those markets. I'm not convinced the Bremner/SkyDome area is as desperate for a mixed-use area as those other two, especially considering that there are things like movie theatres and gyms not that far away. There will obviously always be demand for things like condos, but there would have to be a good chunk of them to offset the costs of downsizing from SkyDome. This might be the first time in history that Toronto takes a cue from something Ottawa has done, though.

The Exhibition/BMO development is more interesting IMO as it is definitely more in-need for mixed-usage.

 

[C-mac]

I guess one question: Where do the Jays play when they're demo-ing SkyDome? Montreal? Vancouver? Dunedin? Buffalo? All of them?

The problem with comparing Bremner with the Ottawa or Edmonton districts is that, and others can feel free to correct me on this, those two cities really lacked central, core, mixed-use areas in those particular spots, and so Lansdowne and Edmonton were filling in a big hole in those markets. I'm not convinced the Bremner/SkyDome area is as desperate for a mixed-use area as those other two, especially considering that there are things like movie theatres and gyms not that far away. There will obviously always be demand for things like condos, but there would have to be a good chunk of them to offset the costs of downsizing from SkyDome. This might be the first time in history that Toronto takes a cue from something Ottawa has done, though.

The Exhibition/BMO development is more interesting IMO as it is definitely more in-need for mixed-usage.

That is always the tricky part, where would Jays play?? But in seems in this context, the idea is no longer demo the stadium and put the new one back in the same spot. The new stadium would be at the Ex grounds or somewhere else.

From what I understood a while back, Rogers isn't happy with the money they're making off the Dome. They don't own the land, only the building, and because they have like a 100 year lease with Canada Land Corp, they want to squeeze more stuff (office towers, condo's etc..) onto that prime land where the Dome now sits. Hence the talk of a new stadium.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Moving the Jays to the CNE grounds would be a disaster IMHO. There's no way a mixed use stadium (Baseball, Football, and Soccer) is built so you're building a second building. The area is already a zoo to get out of when there's events at BMO, Coca Cola Colosseum, and Bud Stage (not to mention when the EX is on). And though the Ontario line is coming online, it's not going to be that great of a relief.

There's been multiple plans for the Rogers Centre. One was to build on the South side of Bremner across the street from RC while the Jays continue to play there and demolish as little as possible. Cities like Detroit and Cincinnati I believe did something similar. The other is to move to a location in the Harbour area.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I know Rogers owns the stadium but do they actually own the land? Isn't it leased from CN or the feds or something?

I dunno - I guess returning to this discussion is logical in the context of having finished the renovations but it seems absurd that Rogers would pivot directly from spending $500m ro renovate and shrink the stadium to blowing it up any time in the next 5-10 years to be replaced. And it's even more absurd if they lack the ability to monetize the value of the lands. I don't think they own the stadium site and they definitely don't own Ripley's or the roundhouse so... what's he really talking about here?

I dunno - seems like a lot of onthing again, IMHO.

But hey. - got the thread going again!

EDIT: Just noticed C-Mac already noted the site is owned by CLC, which is what I suspected.

But if we're back to pointlessly debating hypothetical stadium locations, I'm going to throw out Downsview. It was considered a long time ago and makes a lot more sense now. the transit access is improved, the base is fully closed and Bombardier is leaving. And it looks like Rogers already has a relationship wiht the developers to use a chunk of the land in the next few years. It's got good highway access and it's centrally located. It could be the centre of a brand new, mixed-use node.

Honestly, I'm not even sure if I'm serious it might be a good idea but if we're going to keep this thread going for a bit, we need to throw some stuff at the wall, don't we?

(Speaking of which - this talk of building a second stadium on the same site has been proven to be unworkable on multiple occasions, even with a smaller footprint. Downtown Toronto - especially southcore - is not downtown Cinicinati and definitely not downtown Detroit.)

 

[PL1]

But if we're back to pointlessly debating hypothetical stadium locations, I'm going to throw out Downsview. It was considered a long time ago and makes a lot more sense now. the transit access is improved, the base is fully closed and Bombardier is leaving.

Indeed, Bombardier closed several months ago, perhaps even a year

 

[taal]

(Speaking of which - this talk of building a second stadium on the same site has been proven to be unworkable on multiple occasions, even with a smaller footprint. Downtown Toronto - especially southcore - is not downtown Cinicinati and definitely not downtown Detroit.)

I don't really understand this, what's unworkable about it ? Assume you can relocate temporarily for a few years ... or is the argument that if you do demolish the stadium there will be so much pressure to build condos/offices given the return possible ?

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I don't really understand this, what's unworkable about it ? Assume you can relocate temporarily for a few years ... or is the argument that if you do demolish the stadium there will be so much pressure to build condos/offices given the return possible ?

I'm not sure what's not clear.

First, I was responding to a post you didn't quote that mentioned Cincinnati and Detroit but neither relocated. They had sufficient land to build the new stadium next door. We don't.

Second, Tampa just announced funding for a new stadium and it won't be ready until 2029. So if you are talking about demolishing the Dome and rebuilding on site, you're looking at 4 years of relocation, give or take. And to where? Buffalo? Ottawa? Hamilton?

Tampa will play in a relatively nearby AAA stadium but they were also only pulling in a few thousand to their crappy, old one so the gaps are far less severe.

We won't even get into the financial aspect, including how every corporation likes to see how much government money they can get or how long Rogers has to let the stadium operate as is to justify the investment they made literally last year. The new suites didn't even open until September! And as a couple of us pointed out, Rogers doesn't even own the land.

None of this means it's impossible but the practical impediments to replacing a recently renovated stadium on land the team doesn't own in a dense, expensive downtown seem fairly obvious, IMHO.

 

[C-mac]

I'm not sure what's not clear.

First, I was responding to a post you didn't quote that mentioned Cincinnati and Detroit but neither relocated. They had sufficient land to build the new stadium next door. We don't.

Second, Tampa just announced funding for a new stadium and it won't be ready until 2029. So if you are talking about demolishing the Dome and rebuilding on site, you're looking at 4 years of relocation, give or take. And to where? Buffalo? Ottawa? Hamilton?

Tampa will play in a relatively nearby AAA stadium but they were also only pulling in a few thousand to their crappy, old one so the gaps are far less severe.

We won't even get into the financial aspect, including how every corporation likes to see how much government money they can get or how long Rogers has to let the stadium operate as is to justify the investment they made literally last year. The new suites didn't even open until September! And as a couple of us pointed out, Rogers doesn't even own the land.

None of this means it's impossible but the practical impediments to replacing a recently renovated stadium on land the team doesn't own in a dense, expensive downtown seem fairly obvious, IMHO.

As you mentioned, I think a scenario where they try to demolish the Dome, and build a new stadium close to current site is out of the question. No chance they play out of the city for 4 years. The only way this works is a new stadium being built in a area that is going to be revitalized. The portlands area was bandied about a while back.

Shapiro has been on record multiple times saying that the reno's are bandaid solution to the "stadium issue" and that the plans are "much bigger in scope" then just building a new stadium. So whatever it is they're dreaming up, it seems to me the renos aren't indeed not the final answer and there is still a vision of a new stadium. I mean it's now the 4th oldest stadium in MLB, but nearly as revered as Fenway, Wrigley or Dodger Stadium.

I think at the end of the day, if Rogers thinks they can make more money by moving the team to a new stadium we will continue to hear about this as it's kind of win win. Rogers makes money and the team won't be playing in one of the worst stadiums in baseball.