PNC Field Wins New Ballpark of the Year Award

Ballpark Digest has named the best new ballpark of the year and the Scranton Wilkes Barre RailRiders $43 million renovated PNC Field has won the award this season. Here is the press release from the RailRiders:

PNC Field Honored by Ballpark Digest as Best Ballpark of 2013
A creative renovation plan that kept the International League in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in one of the most scenic sites in baseball earned recognition from Ballpark Digest for Best Ballpark of the 2013 season.

Building a new ballpark on the base of an old one is an enormous challenge: what made sense in the 1980s may not make sense for a modern ballpark. And doing it all during a single season – demolition, reconstruction while building around retained features – is even more of a challenge. For these reasons, PNC Field is the choice as Best New Ballpark of 2013 by Ballpark Digest, the leading guide to baseball and ballparks on the Internet.

“Going down to the concrete and building anew is quite the architectural and engineering challenge,” said Kevin Reichard, publisher of Ballpark Digest. “We’re not talking mere renovation here: we’re talking dramatic makeover – basically, a new ballpark. That’s why we’re honoring PNC Field as our best new ballpark of the year.”

Home of the International League’s Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees, PNC Field reopened this season after the SWB franchise spent the 2012 season on the road. Opening in 1989, the original Lackawanna County Stadium was a two-deck monstrosity seating nearly 11,000, built at a time when the goal was to fill as many seats as possible and not worry about the amenities fans expect today.

“What a tremendous honor,” said RailRiders president/GM Rob Crain. “So many people made this dream a reality and on behalf of everyone that was involved and our fans here in Northeast Pennsylvania, sincere thanks to Kevin Reichard and Ballpark Digest. We believed the reconstructed PNC Field ranked among the best in baseball. This award cements that status.”

“We are delighted for PNC Field to have received this recognition,” said Mandalay Baseball CEO Art Martin. “We are extremely excited about what the new ballpark and the team mean to the community of Northeast Pennsylvania and appreciate the collaborative efforts of everyone who helped turn this dream into a reality for the great baseball fans across this region.”

The challenge, as undertaken by Philadelphia firm EwingCole, was to take a hulking pile of concrete and turn it into a fan-friendly venue. The plan was dramatic: take down the second deck, put in a 360-degree concourse, install new comfortable seating and second-level suites and club, add group spaces to outfield areas and spruce up virtually everything else, from concessions to restrooms. Again: it would have been easier to just bulldoze the old ballpark and put up a new one, but the decision was made to reuse where possible – so the end result was a new ballpark built on the base of the old one. The total cost of the renovations, as constructed by Alvin H. Butz, Inc., was $43.3 million. With new Triple-A ballparks now costing $60-million plus, there was a definite cost savings to the new ballpark/renovation plan.

In the end, the fans responded: the RailRiders drew 435,839 fans to PNC Field this season, the best year at the gate since 2008.

“The easy path would have been to bulldoze PNC Field and build somewhere else,” Reichard said. “The PNC Field site is one of the most scenic – and challenging – in all of baseball. Keeping the ballpark in its present spot and reusing what was appropriate is a welcome trend in architecture, and PNC Field is a prime example of building new on top of the old in a cost-effective manner.”

“We are delighted that the transformative renovation of PNC Field has been recognized as Ballpark of the Year,” said Craig Schmitt, RA, principal at EwingCole. “One of the main goals for both the county and the team was to design an intimate and fan-friendly ballpark. There is a legacy of baseball in this region and this ballpark will carry that forward for generations to come.”

ABOUT THE BALLPARK DIGEST AWARDS
Each year Ballpark Digest honors noteworthy accomplishments in the baseball world, whether it be Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, independent baseball, summer-collegiate baseball or college baseball. Readers are asked to submit nominations for awards in specific categories; Ballpark Digest editors then go though the submissions (numbering some 300 pages of documentation last year). The awards cover both individual accomplishments as well as team accomplishments. This is the fifth season for the Ballpark Digest Awards. A complete listing of Ballpark Digest Awards can be found at www.ballparkdigest.com/awards.