Big change set for Target Field in 2018: the right-field Metropolitan Club, limited to season-ticket holders since the ballpark opened, will be renovated with openable windows and available to any Minnesota Twins ticket holder.
There is plenty of history at Target Field, ranging from town-ball homages to the reuse of a basketball court once used by the Minneapolis Lakers to the use of the original flagpole from Metropolitan Stadium (albeit at half its original height). The Metropolitan Club fit in this history theme with plenty of displays about the Met and the Twins teams of the 1960s and 1970s. As you’ll recall, Metropolitan Stadium was the first home of the Minnesota Twins, opening in 1956 as the home of the Class AAA Minneapolis Millers of the American Association and then expanded for the arrival of the relocating Washington Senators for the 1961 season.
Being limited to season-ticket holders, however, did obviously limit its appeal, as was the commitment to a more upscale food experience, so the Minnesota Ballpark Authority voted today for a $15-million revamp that will renovate the space, add new outdoor seating with food and drink rails, and improve access from the suite level and the concourse. From KSTP-TV:
During the commission’s meeting Thursday, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, chair of the MBA Commissioners, said opening the Metropolitan Club meets the authorities goal of benefiting the public.
“(It’s) also responding to what people want in a baseball game, which is more of these gathering spaces to stand and watch and have a beverage,” she said.
Indeed. The new space appears to take out much of the sit-down approach and replace it with a more casual bar-centric approach, creating a social space that’s very much in vogue these days–an approach, by the way, pioneered by the Twins when the ballpark opened in 2010. The Twins and the Minnesota Ballpark Authority will pick up the costs of the offseason renovation.
Rendering Courtney Minnesota Ballpark Authority.