More Changes to Cheney Stadium?

More Changes to Cheney Stadium

What Cheney will look like

In 1960, a new era of baseball was born in Tacoma, Washington. At the time, many local businessmen had been working very hard to bring a team to Tacoma. The time finally came when the San Francisco Giants announced that they would move their AAA team to Tacoma if they could build a stadium. In 1959 the work began and in 1960 Cheney Stadium made its debut as the home stadium for the Tacoma Giants. Cheney Stadium has served home to the Tacoma Giants, the Tacoma Cubs, the Tacoma Twins, the Tacoma Yankees, the Tacoma Tugs, the Tacoma Timbers, the Tacoma Tigers, the Cheney Studs, and the Tacoma Rainiers. Despite a variety of different teams coming and going, Cheney Stadium has always been home to a Pacific Coast League team.

 2010 marked a big year for the Rainiers organization. They won the 2010 Pacific Coast League Championship and it was the last year for Cheney Stadium. On September 7^th, of last year, work began and the much needed renovations were being started. The 50 year old stadium certainly needed the $30 Million renovation. There had been other renovations in the past but this was the first major one. Many parts of the stadium were certainly old but the new stadium will be everything but that.

Lewis Kamb of the Tacoma News Tribune discussed the new renovations when the news was announced:

"The public display of the chosen design for the 50-year-old ballpark’s first major renovation detailed a long list of new amenities, including new field-level, bleacher and outfield “berm” seating that will add about 1,000 seats, said officials for the winning design-build team headed by Mortenson Construction.

Other features include a third-tier business suite level with expandable meeting spaces and a restaurant; a wider concourse with new and more concessions and restrooms; and new bullpens, dugouts and locker rooms for the hometown Tacoma Rainiers and visiting clubs.

But the chief attribute that stood out in architectural renderings was the ballpark’s prominent grandstand. Rendered in concepts as a modern-looking, boxy structure with timbered siding and stunted roof overhangs, the design drew both warm and tepid responses."

Whether you are driving down highway 16 or south 19th street, you can continuously see the progress being made on the stadium. It will be ready by opening day and fans are very excited.

Talks are going around that a local High School, Henry Foss of the Tacoma Public School district, may be closing soon due to the lack of funds in the district. How does this affect Cheney Stadium? Well for those of you that don’t know, Foss High school is directly next to Cheney Stadium. The two facilities share a parking lot and you can often find people watching free baseball up from a hill on the High School’s campus. As you look at the Google satellite image you can see how close the stadium is to the school.

Key (Line Type)

·                         Parking Lot owned by Cheney Stadium

·                         Property Owned by Foss

·                         Parking Lot Shared by both Cheney and the School

Nothing is certain or verified or anything along those lines, but I have heard rumors that the Rainiers organization is interested in buying the lot. The new stadium will be bringing in a lot more fans and it will also have more seats. So where will all these people park? If they bought the high school campus, they would have a lot more room for parking. It can be hectic enough to find parking/get to the parking lots here and more fans will make this even harder,. Adding more space would certainly make a difference!

Not only could they add more parking but they could add a very nice complex for the players. They could possibly have a training facility for injured players to rehab. A rehab facility here would much closer for The Mariners, Everett Aqua Sox (Short Season), and obviously the Rainiers as opposed to traveling to Arizona.

This situation is still a very big IF but you never know. It would be great for fans to have more parking and great for players to have a nice training facility. There are still a lot of schools in the area for students of Foss High School, so they do have somewhere to go. Stay tuned for more information on the situation and if anything more unfolds.

One last thing to leave you with is an image from the live construction cam. The stadium is looking great!