Nationals Stadium Tour

As part of my trip out to the DC area for work, I got the very exciting opportunity to take a tour of the still-under-construction new Washington Nationals baseball stadium, courtesy of a friend of a Goddard colleague who works for the architectural firm building the 41,000 seat venue in southeast DC, near the Navy Yard. It was right up my alley, getting to see a lot of the behind the scenes parts of a large, baseball related building, and in addition to being a nice escape from the work atmosphere of Goddard, was very very cool. That picture at the top is myself and Chad, our Goddard friend who arranged the tour via his friend.

Despite this picture-heavy post, I have a few more up on my Picassa page if you want to check them out. On to some of the cool things that I thought were worth mentioning here.

First off was the training room and hot-tub area. Check out the 5-foot deep hot-tub with the treadmill at the bottom. I guess it's for rehabbing leg/knee type injuries while eliminating the impact of actual running.

The showers were kind of amusing too - in that they were no different than the showers in your high school's gym locker room. We at least expected something a little more luxurious.

Can you guess what this room is? That's right, it's the Chapel. Yep, a chapel. I guess many teams have rooms for pre-game prayer, meditation, mental preparation, etc. Not exactly what I expected to hear when I asked what this empty windowless cell of a room might be. Also, I guess chapels need a lot of bandwidth these days.

The clubhouse itself was, not surprisingly, a highlight. Just think, the locker I sat in could be occupied by Ryan Zimmerman or Lastings Milledge in just a couple months! This room is oval-shaped by design, to avoid relegating any one player to a corner and fostering a sense of team equality and continuity. Note the nice touch of the Louisville Sluggers accenting the dividers between lockers. The carpet in the center has a big Nationals "W" logo under the paper, and those little cubbies at the base of the two big columns will soon hold each player's fan mail.


After the clubhouse, we moved onto a tour of all the super-fancy lounges and suites. This particular one is for the real big-wigs, and opens out to seats right behind home plate. It's (or will be) pretty swanky, and has a wall that looks right down into the Nats' underground batting cage area, kind of like a glass-walled racquetball court. Those wooden things that look like hanging shelves will have backlit etched glass letters hanging in them to spell "Nationals" when they're done in there. It was dark because the power was off for some construction related reason, and the workers were all walking around with headlamps. Definitely not going to see the inside of this room ever again, unless I win the lottery.

Moving outside, we walked around the stands and down to field level, but didn't go on the field because it does have the grass on it now, protected from the cold by the white sheeting (no, that's not snow). The press box behind home plate seems relatively bland to me, except for the garish hue of red paint they chose to emblazon it with. I'm told most of that red will be covered with banners/ads/logos/etc soon, but our guide agreed that it's pretty bad and told me they have asked that it be changed to a better shade.

The jumbotron in right field is supposedly the biggest one in any stadium now, and after seeing it I believe it. It totally dwarfs the field, to the extent that I can imagine it being somewhat distracting. Sitting along the first base line that thing would look as big as the rest of the field. The "W" logo hanging off the right side of the scoreboard structure is a clock, and the black part of the right field wall is another screen that will display nightly game scores. Unfortunately the intended view of the capitol building from the first base side is now blocked by a big ugly parking garage. Bummer. But it is cool how all the seats are angled to face the infield for a better view.

The design of the concourses seems to have drawn from AT&T Park (Giants) and the other neo-vintage stadium designs in that they are pleasantly open on the inside and outside, giving them an airy feel and maintaining great sightlines down to the field all the way around, except nearer to home plate. The Anacostia River is immediately across the street on the first base side, and is visible from the concourse there. The view will be improved when the concrete plant used for the stadium is torn down after construction ends (you can see it in the "Erin" picture). One interesting peculiarity of the stadium can be found on this metal grate at a park entrance. Can you see what's different?
Humorously, someone in our group noticed this, and it's the only one that's backwards out of about 20 of these gates. Our guide hadn't been aware of it and took some pictures to take back and report it to the appropriate people. I wonder if it'll get fixed. If you go to a game, you'll have to look for it and report back.

Thanks to our great guide, Erin, for a wonderful tour! I'm sure if I ever get back to see a Nats game I won't have quite the same level of access, but it will be cool knowing a little about what's underneath the seats.
You're Welcome!