St. Petersburg, Florida
Formerly Florida Sun Coast Dome and Thunderdome
Groundbreaking: November 22, 1986
Opened: March 3, 1990
First NHL game: October 9, 1993
Last NHL game: April 27, 1996
First American League game: March 31, 1998
Surface: Astroturf with full dirt infield (1998-1999); FieldTurf with full dirt infield (2000-present)
Seating Capacity: 43,969 (baseball)
Architect: HOK Sport
Construction: Huber, Hunt & Nichols
Owner: City of St. Petersburg
Cost: $138 million (1990); $80 million (1998 renovation)
Public Financing: Three separate bond sales totaling $138 million (1990)
Dimensions:
LF foul line 315 ft.
Left-center 370 ft.
Center field 404 ft.
Right-center 370 ft.
RF foul line 322 ft.
Height of outfield walls:
Left and right field 11 ft. 5 in.
Center field 9 ft. 4 in.
Hosted World Series: Never
Hosted All-Star Game: Never
Hosted NCAA Men's Final Four: 1999
The next three years saw concerts, rodeos and conventions but not until the Fall of 1993 did a major sports team move in - the NHL's newest expansion team, the Tampa Lightning. At this time the Suncoast Dome was re-named the ThunderDome. Finally in 1996, Tampa was awarded an expansion team of its own that would begin play in the American League in '98. Also in 1996, the Lightning moved out and the stadium was re-named again - this time to Tropicana Field as a naming rights agreement was reached with Tropicana Dole Beverages.
Prior to the Devil Rays debut, a 17-month long, $80 million renovation took place. 319,000 square ft. of space was added. New features to the Dome included the "Center Field Street" area. Open year round, this area features an Ebbets Field inspired rotunda entrance, the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar, baseball's first in-stadium cigar bar, as well as other eating, shopping and entertainment venues. Other renovations included wider concourses, consession stands, extra seating and a newly configured outfield (The Dome's original baseball dimensions were deeper and symetrical).
Since their debut however, the Devil Rays have failed to develop a healthy fan base - After averaging nearly 31,000 fans in their first season, attendance has dipped every year since - to barely 13,000 per game in '02 and '03. If things continue that way, someday soon Tropicana Field might be once again without a major tennant.
The good: The only artificial turf surface with a completely dirt infield.
The bad: This place could've been half-way cool if they'd made the roof retractable - but they went cheap - and they got an ugly dome trying to impersonate a baseball park.
The ugly: Here's a suggestion: Paint some murals or scene-scapes on the wide expanses of depressing grey concrete walls in this place - some Palm trees, a beach sunset, the Tampa skyline, the Rocky mountains, Three Mile Island - something for gosh sake! The area above the left field bleachers is called "The Beach" (see top photo) and it's surrounded by a mess of boring grey concrete. The Beach's interior concourse is decorated with very cool murals (below), but why not spruce up the rest of the park?
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
One Tropicana Drive
St. Petersburg, FL 33705
888-326-7297
Platinum Club $90
Field Box $85
Lower Club Box $49
Lower Box $37
Diamond Club Box $27
Lower Reserve $22
Terrace Box $21
Outfield $17
Upper Reserve IF $8
Upper Reserve OF/The Beach $8
Seating Chart
Purchase Rays Tickets
TV: WXPX 66
In-park dining choices: The Batter's Eye Restaurant, Rays Bullpen Café, Budweiser Brew House, Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar, Tropicana Room, Taste of Tampa Bay Food Court.
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A trip to the ballpark will be a nicer experience if the offseason fix-up is successful.
By LOUIS HAU, Times Staff Writer - December 16, 2005
It is all part of a roughly $10-million renovation, the most extensive work to be done at the stadium since the Rays' inaugural 1998 season.
Better yet for the city of St. Petersburg, the Rays will pay for the improvements. Local taxpayers shelled out more than $60-million to prepare the ballpark for the start of the '98 season.
The goal of the renovations is to make the much-maligned Trop a more pleasant place to see a ballgame, Rays president Matt Silverman said Thursday.
"We're going to welcome in more than a million fans next year and it's our job to deliver upon an experience that will make them want to come back for more," Silverman said.
The renovations will include major overhauls to the interiors of the premium Kane's Club seating area behind home plate, luxury suites and the soon-to-be-renamed Platinum Club along the first-base line on the 200 level. Four rows of seats will be removed in front of the latter and retractable glass doors will be installed along most of the club's viewing area into the ballpark to give it a more open feel.
But most of the other renovations will focus on less drastic cosmetic improvements. The Trop's grayish green exterior will be repainted, although the shade hasn't been chosen. Outdoor awnings will be added and new directional banners will be installed in the parking lot, parts of which will be repaved.
Inside the stadium, 35,000 seats will be scrubbed and repainted. Painted cinder-block walls on the 100 and 200 levels will be covered with stucco or drywall. Restrooms on the first two levels will be outfitted with new sinks and better lighting.
"We think of this place as our home," Silverman said. "When you invite guests to your home, you start with the basics, making sure it's clean and comfortable."
Silverman is coordinating the renovations with Rick Nafe, the Rays' vice president of operations/facilities and Ana Rabelo Wallrapp, an architect with Wannemacher Russell Architects of St. Petersburg.
Work began shortly after Thanksgiving, and is expected to be completed by the end of March.
"This is easily a one-year project that's going to be condensed into . . . months," Nafe said.
The Rays are considering installing a new sound system and even a large tank of live rays. Improvements being considered include a new scoreboard and large decorative murals along the stadium's exterior. Silverman said the team could end up spending $10-million on more renovations over the next several years.
The Trop and the Metrodome in Minneapolis are the only dome stadiums in Major League Baseball that don't have a retractable roof. One aim of later improvements will be to try to create an "outdoor feel" in the stadium as much as possible, Nafe said. "We're just out to make it one of the more fun ballparks to come to," he said.
In '87, toxic, cancer-causing chemicals were found in the soil of the stadium site, causing an expensive, time-consuming disposal and replacement process that slowed construction. Critics called it the "ToxicDome."
This is the only tilted dome stadium, which looks strange from the outside but makes sense for baseball, where most of the seats are positioned behind home plate. The tilted dome also reduces the total inside volume, cutting air conditioning costs. Like the Georgia Dome,the roof is supported by a complex system of cables. The apex of the roof is 225 feet above the field, directly above a point just in front of second base.
Under the original (1990) design, the outfield dimensions were perfectly symmetrical: 340 feet to each corner, 385 feet to the power alleys, and 410 to center field.
According to the Devil Rays' Web site, "Tropicana Field's asymmetrical outfield dimensions closely follow those of the Brooklyn Dodgers' old home; a fact that became evident only after those measurements had been determined." In actuality, none of the respective outfield dimensions or wall heights are in any way similar to Ebbets Field. Their web site also proclaims, "Tropicana Field: The Ballpark Of The 21st Century"
After the inaugural season, the bullpens were moved from enclosed areas in the corners near the foul poles to foul territory - ala Wrigley Field. Picnic seating areas were installed where the original bullpens had been.
Tropicana Field is the first stadium with artificial turf to have an all-dirt infield playing area since Busch Stadium in 1976. In 2000 a new natural looking and feeling surface called "FieldTurf" was installed.
100 high-backed upholstered "Scout Seats" located in the first few rows behind home plate feature individual monitors showing views from all stadium cameras, statistics and special concession menus.
Only four other artificial turf ballparks have ever featured all-dirt base paths: Houston's Astrodome (1966-1971); San Francisco's Candlestick Park in 1971; Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium in the early '70s; and, most recently, St. Louis' Busch Stadium (1970-1976). Chicago's Comiskey Park had all-dirt base paths with an artificial turf infield and grass outfield in the early 1970's.
Center Field Street, open year round, features the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar as well as the Batter's Eye Restaurant, located, appropriately, in the "batter's eye" in center field. The specially tinted windows of the restaurant make up a 130-foot-wide hitting background, yet still allow patrons of the restaurant to watch the game. Also found on Center Field Street are the Jack Daniel's Billiards Hall, the Budweiser Brew House with its adjoining family entertainment center, merchandise outlets, a bank, a travel agency, the Mountain Dew rock climbing wall, a kid-sized concession stand with kid-sized prices, and a food court known as the Taste of Tampa Bay, which features cuisine from some of the area's most popular restaurants.
Tropicana Field's grand, eight-story-high rotunda entrance is designed, it is said, from the very blueprints used for the rotunda at Ebbets Field, built in 1913.
Fans can enter the rotunda by following a 900-foot, tropical-theme ceramic mosaic walkway. Called SunSations, The Florida Power Walkway is the largest outdoor ceramic mural in Florida and one of the five largest in the United States. Made with 1,849,091 brightly colored 1x1 inch tiles, it depicts the sun, sea and beach. A sound system delivers replays of great moments in baseball, play-byplay of Devil rays games, and music accompanied by synchronized theatrical lighting that casts different shapes and configurations along the way.
The roof of the dome is lit orange after the Devil Rays win at home, symbolic of the ballpark's title sponsor, Tropicana Dole Beverages.
Tropicana Field features the world's second-largest cable-supported domed roof (Georgia Dome is the largest). It's made of six acres of translucent, Teflon-coated fiberglass and it virtually supports itself with 180 miles of cables connected by struts. Opposing forces of tension and compression keep the roof in an arc. Tropicana Field's roof is slanted at a 6.5-degree angle, dropping from 225 feet above second base to 85 feet at the center field wall. The slanted roof reduced the overall construction costs and decreased the volume of air under the dome by 16.8 million cubic feet. Accordingly, that reduced the amount of air that requires climate control treatment. It is built to withstand wind of up to 115 miles per hour.
FieldTurf combines blades of artificial grass with a specially patented infill mixture of sand and ground rubber. The ground rubber is a recycled material made from used NIKE athletic shoes.
Though originally built for baseball, there have been 16 other sports and competitions presented in the facility. These include hockey, basketball, football, sprint car racing, gymnastics, soccer, tennis, weightlifting, ping-pong, karate, motorcycle racing, equestrian events, track and figure skating.
During their three seasons playing in the building, the Lightning established the top 20 attendance marks in NHL history. On April 23, 1996, a crowd of 28,183 attended Game Four of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Lightning and the Philadelphia Flyers - the largest single-game attendance figure in NHL history.
In 1990, Davis Cup tennis was played at the dome, with a record crowd of 53,150 attending the three-day event. Also in 1990, 25,710 NBA fans saw the Chicago Bulls play an exhibition game against the Seattle Supersonics in what was then the largest crowd ever to attend a basketball game in the state of Florida. The 1999 Final Four, featuring Duke, Ohio State, Michigan State and eventual-champion Connecticut, drew capacity crowds of 40,632 and 39,113 on March 27 and 29. The largest crowd to date - 47,150 - appeared at the Aug. 11, 1990, concert featuring The New Kids on the Block.
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