most of them don’t have the long connection to a stadium that fans have. To them, it’s a place that they work at for a few years. To fans, it’s the place where they saw their first baseball game 20 years ago, or where they saw this or that feat, or where they sat and enjoyed games with their best buddy or parent who is now dead.

That being said, I personally feel the following order of importance: field, brick walls, scoreboard, bleachers, grandstand, exterior, concourse. I’m sure my feelings derive from watching most games on television and only coming down for a live game once every other year. I’d be interested in hearing what parts of Wrigley are most special to other readers.

renovation provide? I’m not clear on all the details but hear clubhouses and other creature features that are not readily seen on camera are in the plan, including modification of the concourses after moving office personnel out of the park.

While it would be a sin to put a jumbotron in the OF and just the thought of defacing the iconic 1937 scoreboard makes me puke, I do wonder if there’s a way to have smaller video screens on the front facades of the lower and upper deck.

Unless the structure is completely rebuilt, the 41,100+ they seat now isn’t going to go much higher. Funny thing, the Trib in 1981 had a chance to buy all the houses on Waveland and Sheffield when they bought the Cubs, or so I hear. They turned that down. Too bad, because a permanent version of those temporary bleachers erected for a special event could easily push the capacity into the mid 40k’s.

where the players are coming from. I wouldn’t want to office in a broom closet. But as TC Cubby said above, us fans have more invested in Wrigley than the players do. The players come and go, while the fans have been around as long as Wrigley Field has, in some cases. I don’t believe that the organization can replace Wrigley, but a gutting, or something similar is probably in order.

They can build one but good luck on the financing otherwise. The new Yankee Stadium is now running into some MAJOR issues on both money and very possibly illegal actions by
both the city and the Yankees in obtaining the tax incentives. There is NO way in the forseeable future you could get the kind of public money or tax incentives you would need to build a new park. In any event this IS the players and they have nothing to do with it.

but i think the Cubs could reach a deal with Miller Brewing and whomever rents the right field billboard to them and make that puppy into a jumbotron. You can show highlights and replays during the innings and between innings, pitches or outs Miller would have exclusive rights to show their message for that series. The Cubs need to get creative again in their partnerships and advertising. A lot of you were against putting the Under Armour ads on the walls, but now you don’t care. So don’t get all hot headed when somebody brings up the word jumbotron. It’s not all about bennie babies and floppy hats or flappy hots and Pat calls them.

Can you dig down or out or something?

would obviously have to leave the Ivy wall and bleachers intact as they are. It would take forever to get the ivy to grow back as lush and full as it is now. I remember the plan was to have ivy on the new exterior wall for the bleacher expansion but when I was there earlier this year it doesn’t seem to be taking. I’m guessing because there are idiots pouring beer and flicking cigarettes where the ivy is trying to grow but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m pretty sure that most people are in agreement that Wrigley needs an update of some sort. The exterior looks good from a distance but (to me at least) up close you notice the chipped plaster that was just painted over and the rusted chain link fences above and about a hundred other little things that could be upgraded without ruining the stadium.

My only request is that they get the guys who renovated Lambeau Field. That company seemed to understand what it was dealing with. Granted, this most certainly be a complete gutting of the grandstand, but the company that did Lambeau understood the importance of history and passing a stadium generation to generation. Lambeau still has the poles from when Lambeau has an open air concourse. Some of the bricks from the old player tunnel was transferred to the new player tunnel. I personally think Wrigley needs a heavy duty renovation, I heard rumors the triangle building being more player friendly as well being more fan friendly. Build that and let’s see where we’re at.

(and I NEVER thought I’d see myself writing this), I agree that it’s time to SIGNIFICANTLY upgrade Wrigley Field. Taking the full stadium tour- you get to see areas of the park that most people don’t.

Frankly, it’s not pretty.

Very small spaces to work in for not only the players, but the coaches, managers (home and visitors), park staff, umpires, etc. It’s not not very user friendly. It literally falling down and crumbling in spots. I didn’t see any rats (sorry Ozzie), but I can see where they would be IF they are in fact co-habitating in the ballpark.

So it is with very mixed feelings that I agree with the sentiment that you rebuild the park on the present location- keeping everything in the outfield between the foul poles (but replace the foul poles with new ones) and build a new grandstand and concourse.

I agree that the manner that they rebuilt the bleachers gives me confidence that they can do it and still respect the essence of the Wrigley Field experience.

The real challenge will be coordinating with other ML parks to allow the Cubs to play their home games there for at least a year while this demolition and reconstruction occurs. No games at Wrigley for 1-plus years? THAT will be a big mental hurdle for everyone involved, but I don’t see how you do the job right unless you make that move away to play elsewhere.

Doing a reconstruct will ensure that the ballpark stays where it is and endures well into the NEXT century…

“If we get something new, OK, but I have to think that we have this,” he said. “I like Milwaukee’s park. It’s beautiful. But I can’t think, ‘Oh, I want to have something like this,’ because then I’ll be upset. And I don’t want to be upset. I want to be happy. It’d be nice to have a new one, but we don’t, so let’s enjoy what we have. I know I have a lot of fun here.”

if the completely rebuilt the grandstand? Wrigleyvill is already pretty congested as is and I know some residents might get pretty upset about it.

plus they better get rid of obstructed view if they do put in new grandstands..

couldn’t the Cubs just play their home games in Miller Park? Playing there has seemed to work out OK for us so far.

but does anyone know why Miller Park has ivy on their outfield wall? Its just below the scoreboard in CF.

I agree that there are areas of Wrigley badly in need of repair, and I’m sure that the player facilities are not that nice but…

Something about the idea of tearing everything down but the outfield areas makes me wary. Remember when they built the new soldier field? How they said they’d leave the old facade and work the new stadium into it? Yeah, that worked out real well….

Do you want a Jumbotron displaying your era and win loss record in big bright lights?

why not just buy one of the rooftops across th street that has not so good of a view and build a screen structure on there? would be far cheaper and easier and do-able asap. Pay the people of the budweiser building to build the screen on their roof. why hasent this been done yet?

as for the clubhouses? but them both in the triangle building. put all the offices in theer, rebuild the concourses with the offices included. leave everything else how it is untul the steel is determined to be unsafe. then rebuild the grandstand add a layer of luxury suites like the press box is now but extend it out to the end of both sides. more seats whatever. just dont touch the bleachers, scoreboard. they’ve done enough there already..

my two cents as 27 year old lifelonger.

the Bidwells only ponied up a portion to build the new stadium in Glendale and got paid back with the naming rights $ that the University of Phoenix delivered. They basically paid ZERO dollars for the place. Bidwell sunk $143 mil and U Of P paid $154 mil for 20 years. The majority of the funding was via AZ Proposition 302 where the hotel bed tax and car rental surcharge generated the money. The stadium doesn’t get all the dollars, it is spread around to the Spring Training facilities as well, but it got most of it.

Wrigley Field should stay as close to the original as possible. I like the triangle building for the clubhouses and offices if possible but the grandstand should be rebuilt (which it needs to be) in the same way it stands now.

Every new park (and I’ve been to Safeco, San Fran, Petco, Chase, Miller, Coors, GAB, Tropicana, Camden, PNC) has a 3rd deck and those seats at the top are usually terrible, I wouldn’t want 3 decks at Wrigley. The new “retro” parks are ALL the same. Even the good ones like AT&T/SBC/Pac Bell, Safeco and PNC are pretty bland after the first or second inning. Same food, same beer, same jumbotron and then one “quirk” to make it seem cool (a hill, a roof, a train, a sushi bar, a big glove, a bay, a river, a beach, a pool, whatever)

Everyone is getting all weey for Yankee stadium but the only thing left in that place from the original are the outside walls and the grass…..they ruined that place.

Wrigley needs work (any place that’s 90 years old needs work from time to time), but the reason the Cubs do well (in attendence) even when the team isn’t, is because of Wrigley. The owners of the new stadiums say they need them for more revenue….but look how many people show up to a game in Pittsburgh when the Nationals are in town or how many people head to Safeco for an exciting September matchup with the Royals. Everything in the power of the new ownership should be done to maintain the exact look and feel of Wrigley while making it safe and improving the clubhouses.

has only two decks. The second one is separated into 200 and 300 level seating, much like Wrigley is separated into a 400 and 500 level. But two decks was part of the mission from day one.

I guess I don’t see the bland sameness in some of the new ones you mentioned. Pac Bell and Camden (to me) still hold up after quite a few years. Both seem as if they’d been there forever, and both still are an A+ day at the ballpark experience.

Safeco seemed interesting but maybe too big.