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September 08, 2010
Wolff hires architect to design A's stadium they already designed last month
Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff may still be steamed at the slow pace of MLB's decision-making on whether he can move his team to San Jose, but he still knows how to make headlines. Witness the news stories today on Wolff hiring the firm 360 Architecture to design the San Jose stadium that he doesn't even know if he'll get to build.
Admittedly, it's big news, because 360 has previously only designed football stadiums (the New Meadowlands Stadium) and basketball/hockey arenas (the Sprint Center in Kansas City), and before this no one would have known what a San Jose stadium would look like or who would design it ... er, wait a minute.
It's an interesting design, anyway, though at first glance those double-decked outfield grandstands seem to make it too large for the under-40,000-seat stadium that Wolff has talked about. There also doesn't seem to be much in the way of a luxury-suite/club-seat level, which would potentially make for better views from the upper deck (a la Pittsburgh's PNC Park), though it's really hard to tell much from a rendering.
Wolff also has hired 360 to design his new San Jose Earthquakes stadium, whenever he gets around to building that. Shoot first, figure out the finances later, that's his motto.
The "wait a minute" link is broken.
Posted by Sean on September 8, 2010 11:02 AM
Fixed now, sorry about that.
Posted by Neil on September 8, 2010 11:41 AM
Actually 360 Architecture helped design SAFECO Field, so they do have baseball stadium design experience.
As for the Quakes stadium, Wolff isn't "shooting first" and then figuring out finances later. He's already said he'd like to get all the funding in place first before they start building. However, his son has said they're going to use their own money to start while they finish getting the rest of the financing in place. (Which they've already started with the recent application to clear the site and construction of the training facility adjacent to the stadium).
Posted by Dan on September 8, 2010 12:16 PM
I find more errors in Neil's Nat'l Enquirer articles than in my 6-year old's spelling papers. 360 never designed a ballpark? You might want to Google them Neil--winners of the 2009 and 2010 ballpark of the year for their work in Columbus and BT&T park in Winston-Salem. And the capacity seems larger than 40k?? Wow---what an architectural wonder you are---did you notice that there is barely a third deck Neil--typically about 10k+ seats in a 3rd deck---the renderings are a max of 35k--more likely about 32k---Dan has already pointed out your lack of facts regarding financing of the Quakes stadium---it would be great to see you update your gossip column with facts but I suspect that you won't
Posted by SanJoseA's on September 8, 2010 04:33 PM
I should have specified that they haven't designed a major league baseball stadium. And I didn't know about their Safeco experience — it's usually attributed to NBBJ, and wasn't listed on the 360 website. Anyway, didn't mean to cast aspersions, just meant it was interesting that Wolff isn't going with one of the big names.
As for the lack of a middle deck, PNC Park has no middle deck, and still holds 38,000+ — and it has no upper deck in the outfield. Like I said, it's hard to tell much from one rendering, but it'd be unusual to have a sub-40k-seat stadium with that many outfield seats.
Posted by Neil on September 8, 2010 05:31 PM
Do more research. How many stadiums have YOU designed? If you looked further than a press release, a company website and a 2 second google search you will note that 360 architecture has designed professional baseball stadiums on every level. As for capacity: Target Field, Wrigley Field, PNC, Fenway Park. How maybe ACTUAL seats do you think those ballparks have?
Posted by kevin boyet on September 26, 2010 12:31 PM