When Dodgers’s Guggenheim ownership group bought the team in 2012, it was one of the first famous architectural appointments Janet Mary Smith.
In her first two months at work, she soon became one of her biggest tasks.
And I remembered that the club still feels like a “dressing room 1962”-from the joint beating cage and the dining room used by the home and road teams to the dilapidated dressing room that returned to Dodger Stadium, the opening of half of the century earlier.
So in the first external seasons, the team made some instant renovations, as it updated the space with more modern features and expanded its scope to a more extensive design than two levels.
The re -imagination of the space in the club bucket list remained. This winter has become a reality.
When Dodgers Detroit Tigers hosts the opening match of the house on Thursday afternoon, they will do so in the completely new club space, after they have completed an intense renewal in this season, which focuses on turning the players of the region to the home for the next six months.
“We felt that what we did in 2013 seemed to be a noticeable change,” Smith said this week. “But what we did this year is what [team president] Stan Castin described as “the promotion of generations.”
In just four months this winter, construction sets in the intestine of Dodger Stadium, and drilled the deep trenches in the left and right foul lines to build new and expanded areas for the club within the boundaries of the main league of the baseball in the main league.
When fans arrive on Thursday, the work results will not be clear. The stadium will not look much different, not as I did yet I supervised comprehensive renovations of 2020 on the update of the external wings and became the middle field square to become the new “front door” of Dodger.
But under the feet of the fans, evaders will enjoy the new home club.
Fans take opinion with the completion of construction workers in renewal operations during Dodgerfest at Dodger Stadium last month.
(Wali Skallig / Los Angeles Times)
They sought weight, training and food. The treasury room, which was once preserved, was converted into a more spacious and luxurious environment. To excite a lot of the team, the second beating cage was installed, equipped with all modern training technology, while the team hopes to serve as another blessing for the star’s list.
“This club was amazing,” said Freddy Freeman, the first base man.
“Really crazy,” added Tyler Glasno’s jug. “Everything was really nice.”
“It is difficult to put words,” the third base man, Max Monsey, repeated one of the tallest players. “I used to have something and come and you have no idea about where you are. It is really great. It is what you expect from the evaders.”
Since the Dodger Stadium is built on the side of the hill in Chavez Raven, Smith said that the only way for the team to create a new space is to drill deeper into the ground.
“It will be impossible – and I do not use this word accidentally – to go to the hill to create space for the club,” said Smith, whose profession includes the leading jobs to build Camden Yards in Baltimore, turn Turner Field in Atlanta from a summer Olympics place to MLB stadium, and Fenway Park’s regeneration in Buston for the second century of use.
“So we took all the seats, we created the space under the play field, then we created a mainly tangible roof” to rebuild it.
The project planning has been formed over the past two years, as Smith requested inputs from the head of the baseball operations Andrew Friedman, his front office, players, members of the training team and any other person who calculates the club as their work place daily.
She said, “I don’t think anyone in the club did not have some inputs in their area.” “This was really useful.”
Through these talks, the reality that Smith faced first did not crystallize for a decade, but they gathered plans.
She said: “When we worked with our baseball team, Andrew Friedman and all his lieutenant,” it became clear that what we really need was not just an appendix to the club, but a comprehensive renewal. “
Now, Clubhouse is a three -storey structure that resides below the level of Dodger Stadium. It runs from behind the third base hide to the wrong pole for the left field. He is very big, Freiman joked that before the Sunday match, he had no time to check all his new features on his first day there.
“I heard that there are bedrooms,” he said. “I haven’t seen these yet. So yes, it will take a few days to take everything.”
One of the most prominent changes is the expansion of the cabinet room, which has turned from one of the smallest in disciplines to a more modern space with complete new kiosks with mood lighting and digital names.
Wide improvements were also made on the strength and air -conditioning rooms, which is what Smith is attributed to the owner’s goal of Mark Walter, which is to make the Dodger Stadium “a place where the players feel there for 12 months a year”, and he indicated that on the list of Friedman’s suggestions.
She said: “One of the things that Andrew and his team requested is to put the weight room and our training room together, because the activities between the two are very liquid.”
The full kitchen for service on the face also occurred, after it evolved as a place of renewable importance since the last renovations of the club in Dodger Stadium in 2013.
The construction sets throughout the seasons period worked to end promotions for the team’s club in time to start the 2025 season.
(Robert Gotier / Los Angeles Times)
The same went with the cages of the beating-the place that many of the strikers and coaches spend most of their time before the matches, and they made almost unwanted requests for a second tunnel.
“We have made her work with one cage,” said Freeman. “But having cages, it is clear that you can get more. Men can work at the same time … we will be able to change the tables.”
“More space, more resources”, “we hope there will be better things.”
The real surprise of the players was how quickly renovations are.
Feriman walks that, compared to the four -month schedule in Dodger Stadium, it took a wine cellar that he installed in his home “about eight months to do it, so I am somewhat confused.” Glasnow added that at the points this season, “Frankly, he did not think he would be done” in time for the beginning of this season.
“But when we entered, everything was ready to go,” Glasno commented this week, that his eyes were still widely. “For all workers, I don’t know how they did so very quickly. It was a lot of things.”
Smith admitted something that the size of this renewal is not completed very quickly. I estimated that the schedule “may have been three times” as long as the construction window was for four months. To accelerate this process, I worked from PCL CONSTRUCTION, along with hundreds of subcontractors and sellers, seven days a week. “They haven’t got a holiday since January,” said Smith, some of the contractors.
“When he took the task, it was a kind of everyone’s agreement:” You will be available. “Everyone commented on that … I think people feel the true pride that they are able to be part of something that has this kind of cultural importance to the city.”
Smith hopes that the fans will feel it too, even if the game’s day’s experience is not much different.
She said, “I know it is not a space facing space.” “But I believe that our fans have such a link with our players, emotions and emotions, and I hope that the energy resonated.”
With the players, at least, he is already giving the evaders something else to celebrate while opening Defense of the World Championship title.
“It seems to create space from nothing, which they did somewhat,” Monsey said. “Everything looks much larger. It’s a surprising type.”