TOYOTA PARK (BRIDGEVIEW)

'Toyota Park' is the home stadium for the Chicago Fire Soccer Club, members of Major League Soccer. Located at 71st Street and Harlem Avenue in Bridgeview, Illinois, it is a soccer-specific stadium and concert venue developed at a cost of more than $100 million. The facility opened June 11, 2006.
The Village of Bridgeview recently approved development on 8 acres of the stadium site near the corner of 71st and Harlem for two midrange hotels, an indoor water park, four to six restaurants, and other retail to begin construction in late 2007.^[1]
The stadium also hosts the lacrosse team the Chicago Machine, for Machine games only the east stand is used. ^[2]

Contents

The stadium

References

External links

The stadium

Designed to incorporate traditional stadium features from both American and European facilities, Toyota Park includes mostly covered seating, a brick façade and stone entry archway, and first rows that are less than three yards from the field. It also includes 42 executive suites, 6 larger party suites, the Illinois Soccer Hall of Fame, and the Fire club offices in the stadium as well as a large stadium club facility measuring some 9,000 square feet.
A practice facility with two fields (one natural grass, one turf) for the Fire club and its youth programs is adjacent to the stadium. In addition to the approximately 20,000 permanent seats. According to statements by Fire President John Guppy, the stadium's design has the planned-in ability for expansion without great cost in anticipation of future attendance growth. The natural grass stadium field includes a a $1.7 million turf management system including full heating, drainage, and aeration capabilities and measures 120 yards long by 75 yards wide.
A permanent stage was incorporated into the stadium design to not only facilitate hosting concerts but also to be able to quickly change from stage configuration to soccer configuration and vice-versa. A typical conversion takes less than 18 hours to complete, and an additional 8,000 chairback seats can be accommodated on the field for concerts and other stage events.
Stadium naming rights were reportedly agreed upon as early as Summer 2005 with Bridgeview Bank Group to name the facility Bridgeview Bank Stadium, but talks repeatedly broke down and subsequently reopened. In 2006, Toyota announced that it had entered into a 10-year naming rights agreement with the Village of Bridgeview, as the stadium was renamed Toyota Park.^[3]

References

1. First came the Fire, next comes the water
2. Seating Chart
3. Toyota Purchases Naming Rights For Stadium

External links

★ World Stadiums entry

★ Toyota Park Official Website

★ Stadium Site at chicago-fire.com