Six thousand baseball fans flocked to Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium on April 2 to attend its public unveiling following six months of off-season renovations.
The Cheney Stadium enjoyed a $30 million renovation, which began last September, following the last home game of the Rainier’s 2010 season, and was completed April 1.
Named for Ben Cheney, a Tacoma businessman, civic leader and baseball fan, who founded the Stadium in 1957, Cheney Stadium was originally home to the San Francisco Giants AAA team. In 1959, The Giants agreed to relocate to Tacoma from Phoenix, on the condition that the city build a new stadium. The $900,000 construction job was approved by the Tacoma city counsel, and was executed in just three and a half months. Since the Tacoma Giants’ first game in April 1960, Cheney Stadium was known as the “100-Day Wonder.”
Fifty-one years later, and now home of the Tacoma Rainiers, Cheney Stadium is more majestic and more spacious than ever. New amenities from the 2010-2011 renovations include luxury suites, restaurant areas, club rooms, better ADA access and seating, more concession points and more premium seats. The roof has been scaled back quite a bit, exposing 1,700 more seats, but the steep pitch of the grandstand has stayed the same, allowing a good view of the field from every seat in the stadium. The Stadium has kept its original light standard from Seal’s Stadium in San Francisco, brought to Tacoma by Ben Cheney in 1960. The life-sized bronze statue of Ben Cheney sitting in the stands remains as a lasting testament to the stadium’s luminary figure.
The stadium’s 96,000 square feet hosts thousands of pounds of local materials added in the renovations, including roof beams made of Douglas Fir wood. The Rainiers’ home page at minorleaguebaseball.com reports: “Every addition was constructed using local materials, built with Tacoma and the Pacific Northwest in mind.”
In addition to new additions to the Stadium, the Rainiers are under new ownership. Mikal Thomsen of University Place, along with fifteen local partners, bought the team last week.
In 2009, the Rainiers renewed a 32-year lease with the city of Tacoma, contingent upon the renovations to the Stadium.
The Rainiers will continue playing at Cheney Stadium until 2041.
The Rainiers’ first home game of the 2011, and the debut of the newly renovated stadium, will be Friday April 15. The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
[PHOTO COURTESY / HOLLY HARTMAN]
