DALLAS – Design features of the new bond-financed baseball stadium in downtown El Paso, Texas, will pay homage to the city’s copper mining and railroad history.
The minor league stadium will be financed with proceeds of $50.4 million of revenue bonds supported by a voter-approved increase in the city’s hotel tax. It will be built on the site currently occupied by City Hall, which along with an adjacent science museum will be razed over the next two months.
Fans will be shaded from the west Texas sun by a copper screen and the color of the bricks used in the façade will reflect those on the El Paso’s main train station, said Mike Sabatini, project designer for Populous Architects. The Kansas City firm was awarded a $3 million design contract by the city in December.
Pedestrian bridges and overhangs will span Union Pacific’s rail lines along one side of the stadium.
Murals of scenes from El Paso baseball history will be featured at the stadium.
Other structural elements will suggest a railroad boxcar feel, Sabatini said, and Southwest-themed design details will be based on El Paso’s historic Kress Building, built as a downtown department store in 1937.
Fans will have a view of the downtown area and the Franklin Mountains from the stands, he said.
"The ballpark has to reflect El Paso,” Sabatini said. “You will know this is El Paso's ballpark.”
The 5.5-acre site is small for a stadium that can accommodate up to 9,000 spectators, Sabatini said, and most of the seating is between the foul poles. He said the four-level vertical design will bring spectators closer to the action.
“We want to deliver a major league experience in a minor league stadium,” Sabatini said.
Demolition of the Insights El Paso Science Center will get under way March 11 to prepare the way for the baseball stadium. The facility closed in December.
El Paso voters approved $20 million of general obligation bonds for a new science center in November 2012.
Several city departments have completed their move from City Hall to one of two nearby buildings purchased to accommodate municipal operations. The final moves got under way Wednesday, with full and complete operations at the new facilities by March 11.
The razing of City Hall will begin in early April, and the entire site is to be cleared by beginning of May. Work on the stadium will begin as soon as the debris is removed.
El Paso city engineer Alan Shubert said the police department’s SWAT team will use the abandoned structures for realistic training exercises that involve explosives.
The ballpark will be the home beginning in 2014 of the minor league Tucson Padres, the Class AAA affiliate of the San Diego Padres. The team was purchased last year by a group of El Paso investors and will be moved and renamed after the 2013 season.
The ballpark bonds backed by the hotel tax will be issued by the City of El Paso Downtown Development Corp., which was established in December to finance and build the stadium. The debt will be issued as special obligation bonds supported by annual city appropriations to the corporation from the hotel tax collections and a share of stadium revenues.
