Wrigley Field Renovation

All photos of Sturtevant, Wrigleyville, and Wrigley Field available on Flickr.

I crossed another baseball item off of my "Pre-Move to Minnesota" checklist on Saturday with my dad, as we made the trek down to Chicago to see the newly restored Wrigley Field.  This massive 5-year undertaking is known as the 1060 Project (referring to the address of 1060 West Addison) and cost the Ricketts family over $600M.  This multi-year renovation certainly did have a lot of aspects to it that were solely built to increase revenue, but I also don't think it's hyperbole to say that this renovation's primary goal was to save Wrigley Field from ruin.  I was last down to Wrigley Field in its 100th Anniversary Season of 2014, and I noted at that time that I was not coming back until the stadium was repaired.  There was falling concrete, rust and chipping paint, out of date plumbing, huge accessibility issues, structural vulnerabilities, and just general disrepair, and I was saddened that such a historic park was allowed to crumble this badly.  I hate to say this as a Brewers fan, but my dad and I were both very impressed with Wrigley Field and the surrounding area now.  I would dare to say that the ballpark is even - gulp - NICE now.  It made a huge leap in my rankings from this visit and strictly as a baseball fan, I left very happy to see that such a huge part of baseball history was not only properly restored to preserve the character of the stadium, but also brought in many amenities and gameday experiences that baseball fans in the 21st century expect.

My dad and I took the Amtrak down to Union Station and it was an easy hour long ride down, with a 20 minute ride up to Wrigleyville on the subway.  We emerged from the Addison stop on the Red Line at about 10:30, and we had a lot of walking to do before gates opened.  Immediately getting off of the train platform, the entire neighborhood was a night and day difference from what was there during my last visit 9 years ago.  There is a huge new apartment building on Addison that spans the entire block between Sheffield and Clark.  The building is lined with ground floor shops, including a Baseballism store which unfortunately we did not have time to stop in.  Across the street from this building, we noticed the new sportsbook addition onto the stadium.  Wrigley Field was one of the first if not the first stadiums in the country to allow sports betting inside the ballpark, and this is a massively popular space that is accessible from both the stadium and the outside.  It's designed very appropriately so that it looks new and glassy, but also respects the scale and color of Wrigley.  As we made our way towards the corner marquee, an entirely new gameday area emerged, all owned by the Cubs.  There is a new hotel across the street on a site that was formerly just a McDonald's and a bunch of rinky-dink temporary team stores (don't worry, the McDonald's has been relocated into the hotel building).  Thankfully, with all of the changes, the Cubby Bear still exists, so we first popped our heads in there for a beer.  I am now in my 40s and beyond the time in my life where I want to deal with massively crowded bars with loud music, so we quickly left and instead started our pregaming at Swift & Sons, which is a new bar on the ground floor of the hotel.  From there, we walked down to Gallagher Way, which is the other huge new addition by the Cubs to the Wrigleyville area.  This is a public plaza that is reserved for ticketed fans on gamedays, but otherwise is open to everyone when there is not a game.  It is bookended by the new 6-story Cubs office building, which features some team stores, a golf simulator, the Budweiser Brickhouse Tavern, and a massive 2-story television mounted onto the side of the building.  All of the team statues have also been moved to this plaza, with the exception of Harry Caray who is still prominently displayed on Clark & Addison as he should be.  We grabbed another beverage from one of the outside beer tents in the plaza and hung out until gates opened.  Outside of the game itself, this was my favorite part of the day and I thought the coolest new addition to the stadium.  We then walked in just before noon to see if the inside renovations were as good as what was done to the outside.

Upon entering, one immediately noticed the restored brick walkways, the crisp new concessions stands that are orderly and well marked, and most importantly - repainted, clean, and repaired.  We both were amazed by how quick and easy it was to order concessions as compared to AmFam Field, and I think that ease made us forget that we were paying $15 for Old Style.  Even later on in the game as the narrow concourses cramped up a bit more with the crowd, we never waited more than 5 minutes for anything, and I never felt like I had to shove my way through a sea of people.  Besides the obvious refreshing of the interior and the concessions, one can't help but notice how many new team stores have been added.  With what the Cubs are doing on the outside, as well as adding a huge extent of merchandising on the inside, they are really trying to capture more revenue for the team rather than losing it to neighboring bars and stores, and they are doing this quite successfully I might add.  I can't speak to how this may or may not be affecting other neighboring business, but it's pretty smart on the Cubs' end.  The only failure to me by the Cubs inside the park is that there used to be a bar above the marquee on the 2nd level that was accessible to all fans and is sadly now a private area called the Catalina Club.  That used to be my favorite part of Wrigley, but I can understand that the Cubs are trying to capture a few private areas, which before the renovation they had almost none.  There is at least a new standing area with bars that overlooks Gallagher Way from above that I really enjoyed.  They need to put some tables or drink rails up there and I would have hung out there much longer.  After confirming that yes the pee troughs do still exist in the men's rooms, we made our way back down to the first level.  We sat pretty close to the bleachers, and we noted that you are now able to walk a little bit underneath the bleachers, which is really cool since you are only separated from Waveland Avenue by a 2' thick brick wall with a few apertures, but unfortunately there is still the rule where only fans with bleacher tickets can access the bleachers.  The partial walkway underneath the bleachers dead-ends with some new Cubs history and Cubs Hall of Fame display areas.  We checked those out and then turned around and headed back to our seats, which were the 6th row of the 100 level, between 3rd base and the foul pole.

The most obvious part of the extensive renovations that slaps you in the face right when you emerge into the seating bowl are the two jumbotrons.  The hand-operated scoreboard still exists in dead-center, but there are now added jumbotrons in left-center and down the right field line.  These were hotly contested by the rooftop owners across the street when they were first proposed because they were afraid they would block views into the ballpark, so they are certainly not as large of jumbotrons as most teams have, but they are much better than nothing.  The Ricketts family alleviated any problems by settling a few lawsuits out of court and proceeding to buy up about a dozen of the rooftops for themselves.  Another significant change to the field is that the bullpens were moved underneath the bleachers, sort of like how the Madison Mallards did it.  The areas down the foul lines that formerly held the bullpens in the field of play were of course infilled with more seating.  Arguably some of the biggest parts of the renovation we did not get to see and probably will never get to see, and those are all of the work done underneath the stadium.  Clubhouses were expanded, batting tunnels were added, and several private clubs were added including the Makers Mark Barrel Room.  This operates sort of like the club tickets we had in Texas or the Champions Club in Minnesota, in which fans with a particular ticket have access to a club beneath the grandstand and then a private seating section close to the field.  I think this type of seating is a fantastic trend going up in ballparks now as it is a way to add private areas without compromising usable space above ground.

The game itself pitted two of the most storied franchises against each other, as the Cubs played the Red Sox on this day in an interleague matchup.  You wouldn't know from how the Cubs played that they are a sub-.500 team as they walloped the Sox 10-4.  Boston was somehow only charged with 1 error in the game, but they had some of the worst defense at the major league level I've ever seen.  There were a couple of quick scoreless frames to start the game, but Chicago put up a 6-spot in the bottom of the 3rd that was capped by a Cody Bellinger grand slam, and they never looked back from there.  I was actually shocked to see that Belly is having a pretty decent season as I assumed he was still horrible - him and Christian Yelich must have worked with the same coach in the offseason.  Staff ace Marcus Stroman picked up his 10th win and gave the Cubs 6 solid innings.  One of the few lone highlights for the Red Sox was Tristan Casas' 2-run homer in the 7th.

As I mentioned earlier, all in all we were both very impressed with Wrigley, and it takes a lot for me to say that for as much grief as I've given this park over the years.  It was so cool to be there in front of a packed house in this historic ballpark.  I went on this trip expecting this would be my last hurrah at Wrigley before we moved to Minnesota, but I left convinced that I absolutely need to return with Erik and/or Molly someday on one of our future ballpark trips.

park rankings and statistics
(see most recent post from 8/14/14): 

aesthetics - improves to 6
views from park - 7
view to field - 4
surrounding area - 10
food variety - improves to 6
nachos - 8
beer - decreases to 5 (very expensive but bonus points for Old Style and souvenir bat cups)
vendor price - 7
ticket price - decreases to 1
atmosphere - improves to 10
walk to park - improves to 10
parking price/proximity - 2
concourses - improves to 5
team store - 10
kids area - n/a didn't see one

best food – Chicago style dog
most unique stadium feature – hand-operated scoreboard, ivy on outfield wall
best jumbotron feature – American Airlines player interview segment
best between-inning feature – celebrity leads crowd in "Take me out to the Ballgame"

field dimensions – 355/400/353
starters – James Paxton (BOS) v. Marcus Stroman (CHC)
opponent – Boston Red Sox
time of game – 2:35
attendance – 40,224
score – 10-4 W
Brewers score that day – 3-0 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/17/23:

Brewers 52-42, +2.0; 3 @ Phillies, 3 v. Braves

Twins 48-46, +2.5; 4 @ Mariners, 3 v. White Sox

2023 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 1

Peter - 12