Quote:
Originally Posted by Hackslack
Too bad the Owe isn’t being configured to be baseball specific like the Skydome is now, or spend the money on a new world class baseball stadium, to at least give Mtl the chance to attract MLB back.
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Given that any potential MLB expansion city would have to build a new stadium, there isn't any reason that as part of Montreal's bid a wholesale interior renovation of the Big O can't be part of the bid. Then could emulate a lot of the outfield features of SkyDome and others with the party decks to fill in that massive emptiness, completely gut the lower bowl into a fixed baseball sightline, all new seating. Something needs to be done with the upper deck in there as it is far too big. If they could build a wall from just aft of the exits and leave the forward section of seats that would great improve the intimacy in there. Maybe they could offer a new lower priced selection of suites up there, or god forbid, hotel space lol. The reason I say the upper deck is too large is because the lower level also is huge. Unlike SkyDome which used to have the entire lower bowl rotate into football configuration, only part of the Olympic lower bowl did that, with the rest of the lower bowl fixed in place. I wouldn't be surprised if they had north of 30,000 seats in that lower bowl. I couldn't even count the rows in the pictures I looked at, if someone has an actual numbered by row seating plan handy, I'd love to see it. Skydome lower bowl has 40 or less rows from field to concourse, I bet Big O has 50-60 rows to the concourse. Also a pretty shallow slope. Gut that whole thing out of there and they can probably move the infield closer in the concourse level and open up some space in the outfield for those other amenities. I have a sense that the whole idea of this is much more complicated than Skydome as there wasn't anything really structural to the building involved in removing that lower bowl and I bet that isn't the case in Montreal.
It might be that it would end up cheaper to build a whole new ballpark for a new team, but given the size of the outer renovation, it would be worth exploring gutting the inside if baseball was a legitimate thing in the next several years.
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