It is amazing how quickly the sports world has adopted green building practices in their many forms; you don’t hear of a new ballpark opening these days without some mention of the green aspects to the facility. But there’s one form of green building that’s snuck in under the radar: renovation work. Renovating an existing facility can be less expensive than tearing down and building from scratch, and the results can be just as stunning. Case in point: Charlotte Sports Park, one of the most successful ballpark renovations ever. Our fourth stop on our tour of 100 ballparks this season, celebrating a century of great ballparks.It is amazing how quickly the sports world has adopted green building practices in their many forms; you don’t hear of a new ballpark opening these days without some mention of the green aspects to the facility.
But there’s one form of green building that’s snuck in under the radar: renovation work. Renovating an existing facility can be less expensive than tearing down and building from scratch, and the results can be just as stunning. Case in point: Charlotte Sports Park, one of the most successful ballpark renovations ever.
Grapefruit League veterans will remember Charlotte Sports Park when it was the spring home of the Texas Rangers: it was a nice, basic ballpark built in the style of the new Al Lang Park and the original Tradition Field. Lots of concrete, but little in the way of ambiance. The design wasn’t why the Rangers fled — in the end, Surprise is marginally closer to Dallas-Fort Worth than is Port Charlotte, and the move to the Cactus League gave the Rangers a year-round training base — but it didn’t help.