green stadiums

Tampa Bay Rays, Hines, to Develop LEED-Certified Ballpark on St. Petersburg Waterfront

Fri

Nov

Though their respective performances on the field could not be more wildly different, New York City and Tampa Bay do share a baseball connection; it’s where the Yankees hold their spring training and home to George Steinbrenner. The Boss even threatened to move the Bronx Bombers to Tampa during the Yanks’ lean years in the late 80s and early 90s. This off-season has been no exception, with Joe Torre’s ouster and A-Rod’s initially Scott Boras-less contract negotiations both taking place at the club’s offices in Tampa.

The Sustainable World Series: Both Rockies and Red Sox Swing for the Green

Thu

Oct

by Stephen Del Percio

4 comments

The World Series got underway last night at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, which dates from 1912. The mere age of the facility, coupled with its dense, urban location, makes it inherently sustainable, but the Sox have also quietly started to implement a variety of interesting green features at their venerable old ballpark.

The club is consulting with the Natural Resources Defense Council ("NRDC") and plan to install photovoltaic panels at Fenway. Their off-season construction manager, Baltimore-based Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse, has already upgraded the playing field with a sand filtration layer that controls stormwater runoff into the Boston streets. The grounds crew also uses non-toxic chemicals to keep the diamond in shape. And, as the Sox prepare for more extensive upgrades to Fenway in advance of the park’s hundredth anniversary in 2012, Architectural Record reports they’ll be reusing stadium bricks, recycling construction debris, sourcing local materials, and installing fluorescent lighting and low-flow plumbing.

When the Series shifts to Denver's Coors Field on Saturday night for Game 3, the Rockies will similarly showcase green features at their ballpark. Although Coors only dates from 1995, earlier this season the club announced that it had installed a 9.89 kW solar array to offset the energy consumption of its LED scoreboard. Below the scoreboard, a monitoring system displays in real-time the amount of energy produced by the array. The Rockies also set up an in-stadium educational display for fans to learn more about the system.

Sports teams are slowly catching on to the green movement- see our recent posts about the Mets' Citi Field, Giants/Jets Meadowlands Stadium, and training facilities for the Jets and Washington Capitals.

Last in the NL East but First in Sustainability?

Fri

Oct

by Stephen Del Percio

1 comment

The Washington Nationals' new $611 million ballpark will go green (HOK rendering below) according to this article. The D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission authorized changes to the stadium design, including the $1.2 million it will cost in order to become certified as a "green building." "That was the original design goal, to come up with the very first green sports facility in the country and we think we've done that," D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission spokesman Tony Robinson says. A "green" certification won't cost the city additional money -- the $1.2 million will come from the original $611 million budget. One of the elements that will make the stadium "green" is a filtration system, designed exclusively for the Nationals ballpark.