Natural grass. Skyline views. Seats closer to the action.
Come April 2004, that is what fans of the Philadelphia Phillies will experience in the team's new traditionally-styled 43,000 seat ballpark, the preliminary design of which was unveiled last Thursday.
Although the yet-unnamed ballpark will be directly east of Veterans Stadium, the Phillies' current home in South Philadelphia, few parallels exists between the two.
Spectators will enter the ballpark at street level, rather than via ramps at the Vet, and about 21,000 seats will actually be below street level, allowing fans to step down to reach them.
And instead of the imposing mass of the Vet, the ballpark will be more transparent, as those standing on the sidewalk outside the new facility will be able to see across the field to the downtown skyline.
"There's a lot for fans to fall in love with," said Joe Spear, senior vice president for HOK Sport, the Kansas City-based firm that designed the project along with Philadelphia-based Ewing Cole Cherry Brott.
The project takes a variety of cues from Philadelphia architecture, including a seating deck that greets home plate not with a curved radius, but with hard angles -- a feature of Connie Mack Stadium, which housed the Phillies until their move to Veterans Stadium. Another Connie Mack feature, rooftop seating, will also reappear in the new ballpark.
Even the red stone and brick masonry features of the building were inspired by the design of Penn's Fisher Fine Arts Library.
Although HOK Sport has designed such notable baseball venues as Camden Yards in Baltimore, Coors Field in Denver and Enron Field in Houston, Spear maintained that he has no favorites, saying only that this is "the best ballpark for Philadelphia."
"Camden Yards would look ridiculous here, and this would look ridiculous in Baltimore," Spear said.
The ballpark will be located in the sports complex just north of the new Eagles stadium, which broke ground on June 7. Many individuals, including Mayor John Street, had hoped to place the Phillies in a downtown environment, as many other cities have done.
But at the ceremony, Street seemed happy just to see the $346 million ballpark moving forward.
"It really is a very, very good step in the right direction for making this city into the world-class place that we all want it to be," Street said.
Phillies President David Montgomery stressed that time and time again, the team's fans said that they preferred the familiar South Philadelphia location.
"They clearly believe we've built up equity being housed with three other professional sports clubs," Montgomery said. "There isn't another city in the country that has all of their professional sports teams playing within a block or two of each other."
But in an attempt to bind the ballpark to the urban fabric, it will be built within the city street grid, rather than in the middle of a vast parking lot. According to Spear, when the market conditions are right, buildings could surround the ballpark just as they would in a downtown location.
In the meantime, however, a $9 million funding gap exists in the approximately $1.2 billion two-stadium package negotiated with the Phillies and the Eagles. Both Street and Montgomery pledged to find the missing funds, though Street said that City Hall would not foot the bill.
"We're through -- we put in what we're going to put in," Street said of the city's present contribution of about $394 million.
The two sides said that the ballpark's planned November groundbreaking would not be put on hold while the money is found.
According to Phillies Director of Business Development Joe Giles, a wide variety of seat prices will be available at the ballpark, but those prices have not yet been determined.
Phillies Manager Larry Bowa, whose career began at Connie Mack Stadium, said that other ballparks like the Phillies' planned home "bring a lot of energy to the players," and that this one would be no exception.
"I know that nothing but good things are going to happen here," he said.
