I actually visited Wrigley twice on Thursday. I made a photo visit during the morning, as I was running on an errand which took me by the ballpark. I have family in town staying with me, so I made another visit with them during the afternoon. I only have one photo from the afternoon visit. Earlier in the week I had received a Cubs Community email, advising that the intersection of Sheffield and Waveland would be completely closed for utility work. I was surprised to see traffic lanes on Addison closed as well. As my photos illustrate, traffic is a real mess around the ballpark this week. Addison is down to one lane in each direction between the CTA Red Line station and the Captain Morgan Club. Sheffield and Waveland are closed where they intersect. This is no longer a through intersection. The main bleacher gate is not currently accessible. The plan is to have this is all wrapped up before the next homestand begins a week from Friday. One point I would like to make is that I noticed where the new curbs were being laid down on Sheffield Avenue. It appears that the Sheffield sidewalk on the west side will be significantly reduced in width. It looked pretty narrow to me. It could be interesting how congested the sidewalk will become if there is a decent size crowd for the bleachers. The lines for the bleachers form along the sidewalk. In addition, when charter buses return to Sheffield, will there be enough room for the buses to unload and load? The ballpark was open to tours, but I was informed that there was a corporate event taking place later in the day, from 2:30 to 7:00 p.m. During my second visit, with my visiting family, there were Illinois State Troopers parked in front of the broadcast lot on Waveland. I was with my two young nephews, so I wasn't able to pull out the camera to take photos. The Cub players might have been meeting at the ballpark to take a team bus to the airport. The troopers may have been escort for the team buses. There were no buses or equipment truck when I was there. That's my guess.
We'll continue to document construction as it continues. While the bleachers are mostly complete, there are still some tweaks they need to make inside, and of course work continues on the triangle lot and other areas around Wrigley.