Chase Field
| The BOB, The Snake Pit, The Aircraft Hangar |
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2011 All-Star Game festivities
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| Former names | Bank One Ballpark (1998–2005) |
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| Address | 401 East Jefferson Street |
| Location | Phoenix, Arizona |
| Coordinates | 33°26′43″N 112°4′1″W / 33.44528°N 112.06694°WCoordinates: 33°26′43″N 112°4′1″W / 33.44528°N 112.06694°W |
| Public transit | Convention Center |
| Owner | Maricopa County Stadium District |
| Operator | SMG |
| Capacity | 48,519 (2015–present) 48,633 (2011–2014) 48,652 (2009–2010) 48,711 (2008) 49,033 (2002–2007) 48,500 (1998–2001) |
| Record attendance | 49,826 (June 9, 2007) |
| Field size |
Left Field – 330 ft (101 m) Left-Center – 374 ft (114 m) Left-Center (deep) – 413 ft (126 m) Center Field – 407 ft (124 m) Right-Center (deep) – 413 ft (126 m) Right-Center – 374 ft (114 m) Right Field – 334 ft (102 m) |
| Surface | Bull's Eye Bermuda |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | November 16, 1995 |
| Opened | March 31, 1998 19 years ago |
| Construction cost |
$354 million ($520 million in 2017 dollars) |
| Architect |
Ellerbe Becket Wyatt/Rhodes Castillo Company Cox James |
| Project manager | Huber, Hunt & Nichols Inc. |
| Structural engineer |
Hatch Associates Ltd. Martin/Martin |
| Services engineer | M-E Engineers Inc. |
| General contractor | Perini/McCarthy |
| Main contractors | Schuff Steel Company |
| Tenants | |
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Arizona Diamondbacks (MLB) (1998–present) Cactus Bowl (NCAA) (2000–2005, 2016-present) |
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Chase Field is a baseball park located in Downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise. It opened 19 years ago in 1998, in time for the Diamondbacks' first game as an expansion team. Chase Field was the first stadium built in the United States with a retractable roof over a natural-grass playing surface.
The park was built during a wave of new, baseball-only parks in the 1990s. Although nearly all of these parks were open-air, it was taken for granted that a domed stadium was a must for a major-league team to be a viable venture in the Phoenix area. Phoenix is by far the hottest major city in North America; the average high temperature during baseball's regular season is 99.1 °F (37.3 °C), and game-time temperatures well above 100 °F (38 °C) are very common during the summer.
In the spring of 1994, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved a quarter percentage point increase in the county sales tax to pay for their portion of the stadium funding. This came about at a time that the county itself was facing huge budget deficits and lack of funding for other services. The sales tax being levied was very unpopular with local citizens, who were not allowed to vote on the issue of funding a baseball stadium with general sales tax revenue (usage of public subsidies for stadium projects was actually prohibited by a 1989 referendum). The issue was so controversial and divisive that in August 1997, Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox was shot and injured while leaving a county board meeting by Larry Naman, a homeless man, who attempted to argue in court that her support for the tax justified his attack. In May 1998, Naman was found guilty of attempted first-degree murder.
Costs for the stadium were originally estimated at $279 million in 1995, but cost overruns (in part because of rising prices for steel and other materials) pushed the final price to $364 million. As part of the original stadium deal, the Diamondbacks were responsible for all construction costs above $253 million. These extra expenses, combined with the Diamondbacks and their fellow expansion franchise, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, not being allowed to share in the national MLB revenue for their first 5 years of operations, left the Diamondbacks in a less-than-desirable financial situation, which would come back to haunt team founder and managing partner Jerry Colangelo and his group later on.
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