Coors Field - Denver, Colorado

Tenant:

Architect: HOK Sport (Kansas City)
Construction: Mortenson and Barton Malow (Southfield, MI)
Owner: Denver Metropolitan Baseball Stadium District
Cost: $215 million
Public financing: $168 million, or 78 percent, from a one-tenth-of-a-percent sales tax in a six-county region
Private financing: $47 million, or 22 percent, from Rockies owners

Location: Main entrance is on 20th and Blake Streets. Third base (SW), 20th Street; first base (SE), Blake Street; left field (NW), Union Pacific RR tracks and I-25; right field (NE), Park Avenue.

Dimensions: Left field: 347 ft.; left-center: 390 ft.; center field: 415 ft.; right-center: 375 ft.; right field: 350 ft.; backstop: 56 ft..

Fences: 17 ft. in right field; 8 ft. elsewhere.

Built two blocks from Union Station in Denver's Lower Downtown, Coors Field was the first new stadium in the National League since Montreal’s Stade Olympique opened in 1977. It was the NL's first new park built exclusively for baseball since Dodger Stadium in 1962. The Rockies spent their first two seasons in the Denver Broncos' Mile High Stadium, where they set 12 attendance records. The new ballpark does not have the capacity to hold 80,000 people, as Mile High did, however.

Coors Field attempts to combine the comforts of a modern stadium with the atmosphere of the old-time ballparks. It is constructed with hand-laid brick and has an old-fashioned clock tower atop its main entrance. It is asymmetrical, with the deepest part of the park (424 feet) in right-center field, and balls that hit the big out-of-town scoreboard in right field are in play. The two bullpens sit side-by-side next to the scoreboard in right-center and are elevated. The natural grass field can drain 5 inches of water per hour, and there is a heating system under the field that melts snow the moment it hits the ground. Concession stands in the concourse are laid out so that a fan can walk 360 degrees around the stadium and never lose sight of the field.