I’ve been following this site for a long time now, and decided that I wanted to give my own opinion of what I would like to see done, changed, added or dreamed about when renovating the Rogers Centre. With Mark Shapiro overseeing the eventual budgeted changes that will be coming up in the near future, I’m anxious to see the direction that he will take the stadium? Considering that we will likely never see an new stadium in Toronto, here is a list of changes both achievable and probably not in the budget that I would love to see.
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Natural grass field – pretty self explanatory and pretty much the one thing that everyone can agree upon.
Hopefully a new dirt infield is a definite next year?
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Different colored seats, (preferably dark green or dark blue like Yankee stadium. Please do away with the 1980’s seat colours. I have been wishing since the mid 90’s that they would tone down that bright blue that is literally everywhere in the stadium. I heard Jerry Howarth on the radio not long ago wishing they would change over the seats to the green you see in many of the stadiums today. I know some people are going to say they love the blue seats and that it fits our uniform colours, however no team in baseball has built a stadium and designed it after the colour of their uniforms or brand. New stadiums are designed based solely on the nostalgia of baseball and the open air simpler designs.
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More outside exposure - Probably impossible but I really wish they could tear out some of the 5th deck or hotel and open it up to the city somehow. Probably an enormous amount of money to do so and would likely never see the light of day
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Change the name the stadium name – I realize with Rogers owning the stadium, it will never be named the Skydome again. I would however love to see them name it Rogers Field as opposed to Centre.
Open the roof unless it’s rain or snow, I know one of the retrofits to the stadium is to upgrade the computer system and motor systems so the roof will open and close faster than it does now and will hopefully be able to open in cooler weather.
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More group areas similar to the West Jet Flight deck incorporated in the stadium. I know the Hard Rock will be retrofitted to this soon. The stadium is so sterile and uniformed looking. Aside from the first ever retractable roof, the stadium literally has nothing unique about it. The powers that be need to expand their ideas, visions and really think outside the box.
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The Outside - Wow where to begin? Honour our baseball history - This could include a plaque commemorating Babe Ruth’s first professional homerun, a timeline of the Blue Jays history, statues (Robbie Alomar is already being discussed). Obviously a better outside facade preferably brick, way to much glass already in the downtown, stylish brick walkways, old style gated entrances
similar to this. This building needs some old school personalty.
Many things that people love about the nostalgic looking baseball stadiums are likely never going to happen at a multipurpose facility. However below is an image I’ve reworked to show the stadium with green seats and brick work incorporated into the hotel. This is absolutely attainable, just not sure if Rogers even has the stomach to completely overhaul the look and feel of the Rogers Centre?
