Citizens Bank Park

(continued)

Second Base -- The Design

So at this point, we've established that the location of Citizens Bank Park isn't the greatest, but its exterior is pretty nice, especially at night. It's time to venture inside the park's gates, and what you encounter here is what really matters, right?

You bet, and CBP really pulls everything off incredibly well. Not only is interior design very well done, it's also a little different than you'll find at other newer parks -- very pleasantly so. Plus, its countless noteworthy details and "nice touches" are the equal of any ballpark anywhere.

The architectural team behind CBP deserves an enormous amount of credit here. EwingCole, a local firm out of Philadelphia, was the lead architect, and ballpark kingpin HOK served as "architectural design consultants." Together, they created a stadium that contains so many special touches that it will take you several visits to discover and adequately appreciate them all.

I don't know that the whole, in this case, is greater than the sum of its parts, but its "parts" are incredibly intriguing and are integrated extremely well into the overall design.

Let's look first at the seating bowl. As I mentioned on the page about the park's exterior, the area behind home plate is "flat" instead of rounded. In other words, at most parks all of the (incredibly expensive) seats in the first row behind the backstop are the same distance from the plate. This is achieved by curving the backstop. At CBP, though, the backstop is not curved. This makes a seat directly behind home plate a little closer to the batter than those to its left or right. In fact, that middle seat is only 49 feet away from the plate!

Aside from the fact that the geometrics involved tend to position all the seats so they face the infield, the overall effect of this "flat" backstop is that CBP looks like no other Major League park, especially since this "flat" angle is multiplied the farther back from the plate you go. This is one of CBP's many distinctive features. Of course, a feature can be both distinctive and bad, but not in this case. It is a very pleasing look.

Another departure from other new parks is the lack of "cantilevering" of the upper decks. In my review of Petco Park, I observed that the steel supports for the upper deck were cantilevered out toward the field more than at any ballpark ever built. This had the dual effect of making those seats closer to the action, but also making the upper decks pretty steep so you could still see the batter.

The shot on the left gives you some idea of the angles in the seating bowl. Nothing is a smooth curve at CBP! Also, in the very center is "The Break" in the upper deck seats. On the right is the highly controversial visitors bullpen, with the always-pleasant Phillie fans no doubt shouting words of encouragement to the opposing relievers as they warm up.

You could almost make the case that EwingCole had the opposite goal in Philadelphia. The upper decks at CBP are set much farther back from the field, and as a consequence, there was no need to make them nearly as steep. This also means that far fewer seats in the lower decks are located underneath the "overhang" of an upper deck. In fact, EwingCole boasts that fully 75% of the field-level seats are "open to the sky," which is very nice. Also, to facilitate an "open concourse" (at street level, where you enter the park) behind the field seats, and so that fans can walk down to their seats, the field itself is 23 feet below street level. Before you say, "Big deal. That's what heavy equipment is for," let me point out two things: the water table is only 13 feet below street level at the site, and major utility lines -- sewer, water, gas, telephones and three huge electrical lines -- were in the way.

To say the excavation at the ballpark site was a large undertaking is like saying that Hank Aaron hit some home runs. Relocating all of the utility lines, removing 400,000 cubic yards of dirt, and keeping the site dry during and after the construction presented endless challenges. For one thing, waterproof structures had to be constructed underneath everything, and 24 "deepwells" were positioned beneath the field to take care of the water pressure (because the field is 10 feet under the water table). "The system effectively creates a 'bathtub' type envelope to keep water from entering the ballpark structure," says EwingCole's literature on the park.

One other fascinating note on the excavation: those 400,000 cubic yards of dirt had to go somewhere, and when you consider all of the environmental requirements involving this kind of work, that presented another set of challenges. Also, the site was going to have a huge hole to fill once Veterans Stadium was demolished, so the designers came up with the brilliant idea to "recycle" that dirt. They arranged for the soil to be stored temporarily at the nearby Philadelphia Naval Yard, and it will be brought back to fill in the hole once all of the debris from the implosion of the Vet is trucked away. Eventually, that site will provide close-by parking for Phillie fans.

Getting back to the seating decks ... the uppermost deck, called the Terrace Level, has two other interesting features, and both involve gaps. An opening exists between seating sections down the first-base line (the Phillies refer to this gap as "The Break") that is reminiscent of the one behind third base at the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. Visually, it serves a similar purpose to the two towers in San Diego, in that it breaks up the endless sections of seats in the upper deck. Functionally, it permits the uppermost deck in right field to be 20 feet lower, since there isn't a level of Club seats there. As an interesting consequence, it also provides a small pavilion with a wonderful view of the field and seating bowl.

The other noteworthy gap on the Terrace Level is horizontal, not vertical. The box seats are separated from the upper sections, meaning even the upper level has an open concourse. This is quite unusual, and didn't seem to do anything to harm the vantage point of the seats in the "Terrace Deck," which is what the uppermost section is called.

The outfield dimensions also deserve mention. As you would suspect at a new park, outfield symmetry has been thrown under the bus. Replacing it are funny angles, varying wall heights and some downright quirkiness. Unlike the cookie-cutter stadiums of three decades ago, the fences are not curved to achieve uniform dimensions. Instead, the outfield walls at CBP are all straight, and jut in and out in unusual places. Down the lines, it's a fairly typical 329 feet in left field and 330 in right. However, the straight wall in left is broken up by a jog into the field (the Phillies call this "The Angle") at a point that is 385 feet from the plate. It creates an point that is only 381 feet from home, that also starts an upward tapering of the wall height from 12 feet, 8 inches to 19 feet at a point just to the left of dead center field. This is the deepest part of the outfield (409 feet), deeper than straightaway center, which is 401 feet. The right-field wall is 13 feet, 3 inches tall, and contains the out-of-town scoreboard.

This sounds like an awful lot of quirkiness for one outfield, but I didn't think it was overdone. The point is to create interesting bounces that will have fans, and ESPN, buzzing about the new ballpark. Besides, all of the changes in wall height and dimensions don't come close to the insanity that is the outfield in Minute Maid Park in Houston, and that's a good thing!

The bullpens at Citizens Bank Park have generated a lot of comment, and deservedly so. They are "stacked" like at Camden Yards in Baltimore, but the one farther from the field borders the concourse where fans can, shall we say, communicate to the players there. Originally, the home bullpen was supposed to be the upper one near the fans, but when the Phillies' relievers saw (to their horror) how close the fans were, they were moved to the relatively isolated lower bullpen. That means that the visiting team has to warm up right next to the fans of Philadelphia who, as you know, have a certain reputation around pro sports. After some early-season confrontations that were, well, ugly, fan access to the end of the visitors pen (the area at the far end of the photo above) was cut off once the games started, and extra security was brought in to keep the peace. It's probably only a matter of time before some really nasty incident happens here, though.

All in all, this might be an example of bringing the fans too close to the action!

In some respects, I'm saving the best design element for last. Ashburn Alley is the incredible area of games, eating places and attractions that stretches for 625 feet from beyond right field to a point behind left-center field. I'll go into more detail on the establishments on the Essentials page of this review, but suffice it to say that it was a brilliant idea to incorporate this area within the park -- and to open it to the public a full hour before the rest of the park's gates.

Ashburn Alley, named for one of the most popular players and broadcasters in Philadelphia sports history, Richie Ashburn (whose statue adorns the middle of the "alley"), has really been embraced by the fans. The atmosphere is truly electric, both before and during the games.

Go to 2004 Major League Ballpark Changes page