Arrive Magazine - March/April, 2009

capacity at each team’s home field has been reduced—by 12,000 in the case of Citi Field—each stadium comes with an all-star roster of fan-friendly amenities: wider seats, aisles and concourses; more vendors, restrooms, restaurants and retail shops; and, of course, more luxury suites. Lots more luxury suites.

Citi Field

Cost: $800 million Seating capacity: 45,000 Tickets: $11–$495 Cool new feature: The 360-degree concourse level

The Mets’ new home sports just 42,500 dark green seats—all directed toward the infield—with standing-room-only space for another 2,500 fans. To Je Wilpon, the team’s chief operating o cer, the downsized dimensions are precisely the point. “We tried to bring the scale of the ballpark down, to get everybody close to the action,” Wilpon says. “The closeness, the intimacy of this ballpark, is so much better than what we had at Shea. Here, we’ve created a ballpark for the fans.”

Walk through Citi Field’s main entrance to experience the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, featuring a giant number 42 in honor of the Dodgers’ second baseman who, in 1947, became the league’s first black player. The idea for the rotunda, Wilpon says, came from his Brooklyn-born father, Mets’ principal owner Fred Wilpon, who as a boy rooted on Robinson and his Dodgers teammates at Ebbets Field.

The rotunda is hardly the only architectural accent at Citi Field. On the concourse level, the lowest of three decks of seating, you can walk completely around the ballpark, something not possible at Shea Stadium, the Mets’ home since 1964. While on your 360-degree tour, be sure to stop at the center field picnic area. The upper-deck promenade level is split by a 40-foot walkway, allowing an unobstructed view of the field even when you step out for some peanuts and Cracker Jack. Wilpon’s favorite Citi Field nook is in right field, where the promenade hangs over fair territory by 8 to 10 feet, a feature borrowed from the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

Citi Field should prove popular with the business crowd. It has more than 100 luxury suites (Shea had 45) and four restaurants (Shea had two). And don’t expect your menu options to be limited to hot dogs and burgers. The Mets hired Union Square Hospitality Group, run by rock star restaurateur Danny Meyer, to upgrade the team’s culinary lineup. On the concourse level in center field, Blue Smoke restaurant serves pulled pork sandwiches and Kansas City ribs, and other Union Square vendors cook up tacos, Belgian-style fries and, yes, hot dogs and burgers. The Sterling Club, Meyer’s high-end restaurant, o ers 1,600 seats at field level, directly behind home plate.

And to ensure that fans never miss a pitch, no matter their location, the Mets have stationed 800 television sets throughout Citi Field. “Our hope is that the fans will love this place,” Wilpon says. “It was really built for them.”

Clockwise from top left: Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia; the interior of Citi Field ballpark in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park; the new Citi Field exterior.