Concept Video and Ideas for Rogers Centre Renovations

There once was a time when the Rogers Centre – formerly the Skydome – was a modern marvel of architecture. It had a retractable roof, the largest scoreboard in the entire word and was once the envy of every professional sports team.

A lot has changed since then. In the 28 years since, the Rogers Centre has remained relatively unchanged. The Skydome was the last of the “monolith” ballparks, where the vision was to build multi-sport stadiums that could pack as many people in as possible.

This year, Mark Shapiro and the Toronto Blue Jays are working behind the scenes to overhaul the 28-year-old stadium. Reports have the Blue Jays spending somewhere in the neighbourhood of $200 million to overhaul the Rogers Centre.


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Some of the improvements are major pieces of infrastructure: recently-completed renovations to the retractable roof and new seating. But how else could the Blue Jays use $200 million to transform the Rogers Centre from a stadium into a ballpark?

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by some students at the Ivy School of Business asking for some assistance with their pitch for Deliotte’s Annual Innovation Forum.

Deloitte enlisted HBA students to submit their ideas to improve the overall fan experience at the Rogers Centre. Naturally, I was interested in the ideas they had for the Blue Jays’ brass.

Anyway, below is a concept video which this group put together. In essence, the thing that intrigued me was their idea of something called “The Nest” – a glass overhang above the field (inspired by the Flight Deck), similar to the see-through floor at the top of the CN Tower.

 
Another interesting concept was something for the top-level concourse of the Rogers Centre. In essence, it’s a glass donut, where fans could view the stadium from the 500 Level inside a glass-walled enclosure.

The group was looking at multiple ways to redefine the fan experience. Initially, what I suggested was a glass platform above the baseball diamond. Personally, I would come to the Rogers Centre if I could watch the game from a bird’s eye view.

That’s when we realized having the glass enclosure around the stadium would offer an element that another stadium typically couldn’t. There would be this glass donut going around the upper level, and within it would be a Hall of Fame. The glass would just be on the portion looking toward the field.

These students hit on a lot of points which most fans would agree with; there needs to be a much bigger emphasis on the history of the Blue Jays within the stadium. They’d solve this problem by having a Hall of Fame ring at the very top of the dome.

I don’t claim to know whether any of this is possible within the confines of the Rogers Centre without going way over budget, but it would definitely be something new and unique to the ballpark.

Not all of these ideas are totally feasible, but then again, feasibility isn’t a priority at the concept level. The idea is to bring new, innovative ideas to the table, and let the engineers figure out whether it’s possible. The HBA students also had some other ideas:

One of the other groups suggested cutting around 1,500 seats in the corners of the stadium which were typically uninhabited. They would remove those sections and have themed areas and alternative seating.

They also suggested having an arcade, where someone could play baseball or learn to play baseball. We had a similar idea as a group, at multiple points within the stadium to put on a VR headset and try to hit a pitch, something fun and interactive.

You could see the play from the batter’s viewpoint and see what they saw, simulating and trying to hit a pitch.

If the Blue Jays are going to sink all this money into the Rogers Centre, they may as well move forward with ideas similar to these; ones that not only bring the Rogers Centre up to today’s standards of a MLB ballpark, but also exceed it.


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The VR headset station idea is something that’s not only feasible, but it seems like it’s something which seems like it would be relatively simple to set up. The question then becomes, how many stations throughout the stadium?

Questions like these, and many others, are ones which will be answered in the coming months by the Blue Jays. There is serious work to be done at the Rogers Centre over the next few years.

It’s difficult to say which direction the Blue Jays are planning on going with the stadium overhaul, but if it’s anywhere in the general vicinity these students envisioned it could be, the future looks exciting for renovations at 1 Blue Jays Way.
 

Ian Hunter

Ian has been writing about the Toronto Blue Jays since 2007. He enjoyed the tail-end of the Roy Halladay era and vividly remembers the Alex Rodriguez "mine" incident. He'll also retell the story of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS to his kids for the next 20 years.

5 thoughts on “Concept Video and Ideas for Rogers Centre Renovations

  • April 10, 2017 at 8:56 am
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    I’m torn about the glass on the 500 level. It would be great on cold, windy days but how do you propose not cooking people in the middle of summer?

    I would love to see them take out at least 10% of the seats and make the new ones more comfortable.

  • April 10, 2017 at 9:22 am
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    All they need to do is remove all of the current seats and replace them with bigger seats arranged in the proper orientation.

    That would solve most of my issues…:)

  • April 10, 2017 at 10:48 am
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    I would remove 5,000 seats and open up the sides of the hotel, to get some natural light in the building even when the roof is closed. Maybe have the hotel look like it’s standing alone. Replace the mid panel roof with a glass roof so you have natural light for natural grass.

  • August 24, 2017 at 11:17 pm
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    Ridiculous ideas…all of them. Sounds like a description of a even worse version of Marlins PArk. If they are going to market research then they should be asking baseball fans and players not “students” . Nobody goes to baseball games to play video games or learn to play baseball. Nobody in their right minds would want to watch any kind of entertainment from worst seats in the building, all the while enclosed in a hamster ball? Beyond idiotic. What they should be doing is taking ideas and concepts from the great ballparks around the league (Camden Yards, PNC Park, AT&T Park, Petco) and trying to emulate them in their own unique way.

  • November 13, 2020 at 1:42 am
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    To make a more player-friendly field, lay down a layer of field hockey astroturf on the concrete floor, then cover that with the baseball turf. Either pile more dirt in the basepaths or install a layer of astroturf and top it with dirt.

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