Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays takes the field at the 34-year-old Rogers Centre. Once a showpiece of new stadium technology, the facility once known as SkyDome is now among the oldest in the league.
Photographer: Mark Blinch/Getty Images North AmericaHow to Save an Aging Ballpark
Toronto’s Rogers Centre and other state-of-the-art stadiums from the 1980s and ’90s are feeling their age, and changing to make room for a new breed of baseball fan.
When it opened in 1989, the Toronto SkyDome looked like the future of baseball.
Designed by British-born Canadian architect Rod Robbie, the hulking concrete facility cost a then-sky-high $570 million CAD ($422 million USD) and boasted a groundbreaking retractable roof, as well as novelties like North America’s largest JumboTron screen and an attached 350-room hotel behind the outfield. Buoyed by the winning ways of the Toronto Blue Jays, the stadium drew the most fans in baseball from 1989 to 1994, a five-year stretch that saw the Jays collect two World Series wins.