I was in the neighborhood around Wrigley Field doing something non-Cubs related Thursday afternoon and thought I’d stop by the ballpark to see what was going on construction-wise.
As you can see by the photos above, construction on the sports book continues. As far as I know, there’s no change in the expected opening date, sometime in the second quarter of 2023 (though not for Opening Day).
Also ongoing was work on the ballpark lights. The Cubs announced October 3 that they would be replacing the ballpark’s existing lighting system with LED lighting, with the job expected to be complete around mid-November. As you can see by the photos of the light standards, those are remaining in place while the fixtures are being removed. New fixtures for LED lighting will be installed. That should improve both the brightness of the lighting and quality of light, and reduce (though not eliminate) the shadows in the outfield corners. The Cubs’ press release earlier this month announcing this stated:
The new LED light fixtures will produce a higher-quality light output and will reduce the ballpark’s overall electrical footprint, building on the Cubs’ promise during the 1060 Project to execute more energy-efficient and sustainability initiatives.
I look forward to seeing these in action!
The first 10 photos are of the work on the lights. As you can see, they’re in the process of fixture removal. Some of the original lights are still there; others are gone. The rest are of the sports book, which... you can’t really see much except the exterior.
I also threw in an additional unrelated photo (17). I was on a plane landing at O’Hare on Tuesday and got the nice photo of the ballpark from the air.