Innovative ballpark proposed for TND

The developers of Meriam Park in Chico, California, are proposing a bold plan which, for the first time in the US, would embed a professional baseball stadium into the urban fabric of a new town center. The stadium for approximately 5,000 fans of the minor-league Chico Outlaws would place the playing field on a single downtown block enclosed by mixed-use, three- to four-story liner buildings. Even the grandstand will have an “exoskeleton” of leasable space that creates urban vitality on the street. Shared parking lots that were earlier proposed for the town center would accommodate the fans’ vehicles. “If it is built in any way similar to what we are talking about, not only will it be a terrific ballpark, it will be unique,” says Philip Bess, director of graduate architectural studies at Notre Dame and perhaps the nation’s leading scholar on traditional urban ballparks. “It would be an amazing and fabulous precedent.” Bess of Chicago and Seth Harry of Woodbine, Maryland, are the architects on the project. Meriam Park is a 250-acre traditional neighborhood development planned by New Urban Builders. Leon Krier did the urban design with the assistance of a charrette team that included Harry and Opticos Design. an amenity The stadium itself is not expected to earn a profit for New Urban Builders, according to John Anderson, the firm’s vice president of planning and design. The ballpark is viewed as a catalyst that will create real estate value for the company, particularly through the development of businesses and residential units overlooking the field. “It creates a real address if you want to have an office in Meriam Park,” says Anderson. The total value of the ballfield and related mixed-use elements is anticipated to exceed $20 million. The plan calls for construction to begin in the spring of 2006, concurrent with the first phase of Meriam Park’s downtown. The stadium would be ready for play in 2007. As of mid-February, New Urban Builders and the architects were planning a “rolling charrette” by bus to see ballparks and gain ideas. One that they plan to visit is AutoZone Park in Memphis, Tennessee, designed by new urbanists Looney Ricks Kiss, where the minor league stadium reinforces the downtown’s historic urban fabric and was developed as part of a mixed-use project. u