CITI FIELD

'Citi Field' will be the new Major League Baseball stadium for the New York Mets that is being built in Willets Point in the New York City borough of Queens as a replacement for Shea Stadium, which was constructed in 1964 adjacent to the site of the 1964 World's Fair. It has been designed by HOK Sport. Citi Field is scheduled to open for the 2009 baseball season, coinciding with the opening of the New York Yankees' new stadium in the Bronx.

Contents

Plans for a new Mets ballpark

Design and construction

Home of the Mets

Naming rights

Planned stadium facts

Trivia

References

See also

External links

Plans for a new Mets ballpark

The original plans for what will now be Citi Field were created as part of the New York City 2012 Olympic bid. After plans for a West Side Stadium fell through, New York looked for an alternate stadium to host the opening and closing ceremonies. The Olympic stadium project was estimated to cost $2.2 billion with $180 million provided by New York City and New York State. If New York had won the bid, the stadium would have been expanded to host the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as other sporting events, and the Mets would have played their baseball season at New Yankee Stadium. Citi Field will be built despite New York's loss of the Games to London's bid. The location of the stadium was slightly altered and it can no longer be expanded into an Olympic stadium should New York win a future bid.

Design and construction

The new stadium is planned to have a capacity of 45,000 (~ 41,000 seats, ~ 4,000 standing room) and have an exterior facade reminiscent of Ebbets Field (a feature also at Coors Field and Safeco Field, which was long sought by Mets owner Fred Wilpon, a Brooklyn native) with an interior that many have stated evokes design features of recent ballparks, most notably Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. The projected cost of the new stadium and other infrastructure improvements is $610 million, with the Mets picking up $420 million of that amount. The agreement includes a 40-year lease that will keep the Mets in New York until 2049. The stadium will be accessible via the Long Island Rail Road (Shea Stadium station) and the New York City Subway 7 train (Willets Point-Shea Stadium station), as the current facility is.
On March 18 2006, the New York Mets unveiled the official model for the new stadium. By July 2006, initial construction of the new park was underway in the parking lot beyond left-field, with a hopeful finish in time for Opening Day 2009 in late March of that year.

Home of the Mets

This stadium would be the third stadium which the Mets would call home during their nearly 50 year history. The Mets played the 1962 and 1963 seasons at the Polo Grounds, which had also been the home of the New York Yankees and New York Giants.^[1] In 1964, they moved to their current home, Shea Stadium, which in the recent frenzy of ballpark building, is now the sixth oldest stadium in the MLB, and the fourth oldest in the National League. (When the new Washington Nationals ballpark opens for the 2008 season, Shea will be the fifth oldest stadium in MLB, and third oldest in the NL.)

Naming rights

On November 13 2006, it was officially announced that the stadium would be called Citi Field, named for Citigroup Inc. Citigroup will be paying $20 million a year for the naming rights to the park over the next 20 years. This made Citi Field the second major league sports venue in the area named for a corporate sponsor (after Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, but preceding Prudential Center in Newark and Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn), officially becoming the first in New York City itself, aside from two minor league ballparks (KeySpan Park and Richmond County Bank Ballpark). The contract includes an option on both sides to extend the contract to 35 years, and is the most expensive sports-stadium naming rights agreement ever, subsequently equaled by Barclays' $400 million deal with the Nets for their planned arena in Brooklyn.^[2]
At the groundbreaking for Citi Field, it was announced that the main entrance, modeled on the one in Brooklyn's old Ebbets Field, will be called the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, possibly due to campaigns to forego naming rights and name the ballpark after Robinson. The Mets are spending more than $600 million for the new stadium, which New York City and New York state are also supporting with a total of $165 million for such costs as infrastructure and site preparation.^[3]

Planned stadium facts

Comparison between Shea Stadium and Citi Field
(From the New York Mets website)

	'Shea Stadium'	'Citi Field'
Opening Day	1964	2009
Capacity	57,333	45,000 (approx.)
Seat width	19" to 20", 19" average	19" to 24", 21" average
Legroom	32"	33" to 39"
Average concourse width	21 ft.	43 ft.
Wheelchair seating	174	830
Luxury suites	45	54
Restaurants (total capacity)	2 (528)	4 (3,334)
Team store	2,600 sq. ft.	7,200 sq. ft.
No. of toilets	568	646
Public elevators	4	11
Field dimensions (feet)	Left field - 338 Left center - 371 Center - 410 Right center - 371 Right field - 338	Left field - 335 Left center - 379 Center - 408 Right center - 383 Right field - 330

Trivia

★ On May 19, 2007, David Wright hit a 460 foot, 2-run home run off New York Yankees reliever Mike Myers. The home run went over the Shea Stadium bleachers and landed in the Citi Field construction site, and Mets radio announcer Howie Rose jokingly referred to it as the first home run in the history of Citi Field.

★ The naming of the stadium earned the Mets a ''Worst Person in the World'' bronze on the November 13, 2006 edition of ''Countdown with Keith Olbermann.'' Olbermann stated that unhappy Mets fans "have already nicknamed Citi Field something that rhymes with 'Citi' but which we can’t say here. See if you can guess." This was a reference to the fact that Mets fans pay the highest ticket, concession and parking charges in the National League.^[4]

References

1. Mets Ballparks: 1962–Present, MLB.com. Accessed May 8, 2007.
2. Wolf, Barnet D. "The Name Game: Company banners flying on more college stadiums, arenas", ''The Columbus Dispatch'', ''April 29]], 2007. Accessed May 20, 2007.
3. "Mets honor Robinson at new home", ''New York Daily News''. Accessed November 14 2006
4. [1]

2nd

See also

★ Prudential Center, a new arena in Newark, New Jersey for the New Jersey Devils, under construction

★ Barclays Center, a new arena in Brooklyn for the current New Jersey Nets, scheduled to begin construction in August 2007 but not yet underway

★ New Yankee Stadium, a new baseball stadium in The Bronx for the New York Yankees, under construction

★ New Meadowlands Stadium, a proposed football stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey for the New York Giants and New York Jets.

★ West Side Stadium, a failed proposal for a stadium and business complex over the MTA's Hudson Yards

External links

★ Mets.com Citi Field Website and Construction Webcam

★ Citi Field Construction Photos--Webshots

★ Citi Field Construction Photos--StadiumPage.com

★ Official New York Mets Website

★ Official Mets Release

★ Mets Ballparks from Mets Media Guide