The New Commerce Bank Park

I had been meaning to go over to City Island for awhile to see how far along their progress of the new stadium is and finally this past Sunday I was able to get there. I got mixed feelings about it after I was done looking around. First, I really think its going to look great when it's done. I can only talk about phase 1 of the project because that's all they are working on this year but it really looks like a major upgrade. Just the fact that they are going to have seats in the outfield is awesome but what they have up shows me that they are really going hard at this and really trying to put something awesome together. The new video board is up and that looks great. I can't wait until opening night because that's when we will get to see it in action.

Here are my bad feelings about the project. They only have about a half of a month to finish what they started. Opening night is April 16th and they have said that this will all be done by then. As of Sunday they were missing one huge part of the project. The Wall. That's right, as of Sunday they had not reconstructed the new wall. I really don't know anything about construction and I honestly don't know how many guys and vehicles they have over there so I don't know how long the wall will take but that's a pretty important piece of the puzzle. I really hope that on opening night, when I'm there they don't have some makeshift orange mesh temporary wall up because that will really put a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths. They other thing they don't have as of yet are the actually seats in the outfield. They have the structure up to support them but the actually seats have not been placed yet. It was hard for me to picture where they are putting them but again, it seems like everything is going to look great.

I have read that Senators officials say that everything is going as planned and I guess they could continue working on the part of the project that is outside the stadium as the season progresses but I really hope the wall is finished by the 16th.

For some really good pictures and information about the Stadium and the plans go here. Will is a great writer and his pictures are superb!