Back to the Future

Vikings' Landlord Preparing Extension Deals for Metrodome

Jonathan Cole spent a night working as an unpaid intern for the Peoria Chiefs at O’Brien Field, a minor league ballpark he had designed ten years earlier while at HNTB. He asked the club’s owner, Rocky Vonachen, for the shift himself.

Over the course of one July game he handed out balls for the ceremonial first pitches, pulled fans out of the stands for on field promotions, stood on the dugout leading cheers, and cleaned up debris after the postgame fireworks.

He came back with a punch list that only appears from the operator’s side of the building: storage in the dugouts for promotional props, railings upgraded as a fan safety measure, and a clearer read on what the staff actually does between innings. Those details decide whether a ballpark is workable to run, and none of them are visible on a drawing.

Source: Breaking Ground by Don Muret, Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal.

The framework Pendulum uses to judge a venue as a long term civic and financial system is set out in S.C.O.R.E.

Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal