BIG Renderings For Oakland A's Stadium Focus On Community Engagement
Bjarke Ingels Group, hired by the Oakland A's in August to envision the team's next stadium and the repurposing of its existing Coliseum site, has unveiled renderings.
At the Port of Oakland's Howard Terminal waterfront site, plans call for a stadium within a park.
"Our design for the A's new home at the heart of Oakland's revitalized waterfront seeks to return the game to its roots as the natural meeting place for the local community," BIG founding partner Bjarke Ingles said in a statement. "An elevated treelined promenade frames the ballpark on all sides, dipping down to meet the public square and open the field to the water and city views. The perimeter park connects a cascade of social spaces for the fans to enjoy the sport on gamedays and extends the urban fabric with a neighborhood park to be enjoyed all 365 days a year. In other words — we are bringing the 'park' back in 'ballpark.'"
The A's are trying to open the new waterfront stadium while maintaining control of the Oakland Coliseum site so the team has a downtown location to bring in fans while maintaining an East Oakland presence and benefiting from the development of that site, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The team is in talks with the Port of Oakland to lease or buy the Howard Terminal site and has offered to buy the Coliseum site for $137M or to partner with the city or county to develop the site.
Diverse programming is planned for within and around the waterfront ballpark, including cafés, shops, coworking, gyms and homes. This will help ensure the ballpark and park are active even on nongame days, BIG said.
The stadium's 27,000 seats are arranged in the closest configuration possible to home plate, according to BIG. The elevated park around the stadium creates space for an additional 10,000 fans in standing-room.
The rooftop park will also allow waterfront views.
The Coliseum site that now holds the stadium used by the Oakland A's and the Raiders until that team's move to Las Vegas would be reworked into a central park with the stadium becoming an amphitheater with the original baseball diamond intact.
Oracle Arena, home to the Golden State Warriors until the team moves to its new Chase Center arena in San Francisco's Mission Bay in 2019, will be turned into an events center.
The Coliseum site is envisioned as an opportunity to create additional housing, jobs and education opportunities in East Oakland.
