Cubs revive plan for primo seats
Team needs city's OK for renovation

By Paul Sullivan

December 4, 2003, 10:54 PM CST

The familiar brick wall behind Wrigley Field's home plate may have a facelift by April if the Cubs have their way.

Team sources say the Cubs hope to add three rows of premium-priced seats from dugout to dugout that will be among the highest-priced in baseball, but they need city approval to begin the project because of the ballpark's landmark status.

The box-seat expansion won conditional approval last month from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, said Pete Scales, a spokesman for the city's Planning Department. But construction cannot go forward until the City Council takes final action to confer landmark status on the ballpark, he said.

It is not known yet when a council vote will take place, and if the Cubs don't win approval before year's end, it's doubtful they will have enough time to complete construction before the April 12 home opener against Pittsburgh.

But the Cubs already are preparing for the possibility of adding about 200 seats in 2004, which likely would be priced between $200 and $250 per game. The highest-priced ticket at Wrigley in 2003 was $45 on a prime date for a club box, currently the closest seats to the field.

The cost of a club box is expected to rise when the Cubs announce their 2004 ticket prices. If the Cubs add 200 seats at $200 each and sell them for 81 games, the club would gain about $3.2 million in revenue.

A large section of grass from the first base dugout to directly behind home plate already has been removed, leaving a rectangular gap that easily could accommodate three new rows. Cubs officials said the work was done for drainage purposes and would have been done regardless of the possibility of adding seats.

But team sources confirmed the Cubs want the project done this year and they have been negotiating with the American Disability Association regarding wheelchair access to the area.

When the Cubs announced expansion plans in June 2001, they hoped to add as many as 12 more night games along with a proposed 2,100-seat bleacher expansion, a multi-level parking garage, a Cubs Hall of Fame and museum, a bleacher restaurant and approximately 215 premium-priced box seats behind home plate.

Opposition from neighborhood groups and the Daley administration has prevented them from moving forward on any of those proposals, but they believe the brick-wall project is unobtrusive enough to clear the political hurdles that stalled the more-publicized bleacher plans. The city has never voiced objection to the seat expansion behind home plate..

The Cubs originally tried to get every aspect of the project approved in one package but now are trying to make changes piecemeal. They would be satisfied with additional night games and the luxury seats for 2004, hoping for additional changes in the near future, sources said.

The Cubs are owned by Tribune Co., which also owns the Chicago Tribune.

The brick wall behind home plate has been copied in other parks, notably Houston's Minute Maid Field, and is considered one of the signature elements of the 89-year-old Wrigley Field, the second-oldest major-league stadium behind Boston's 91-year-old Fenway Park.

While the already miniscule foul territory behind home plate would be made smaller by three more rows of seats, the rulebook states "it is recommended that the distance from home base to the backstop, and from the baselines to the nearest fence, stand or other obstruction on foul territory should be 60 feet or more."

During a question-and-answer session with fans at last year's Cubs Convention, Cubs vice president of business operations Mark McGuire was asked how the organization would change the wall without changing the park's ambience.

"To the greatest extent possible, [we would be] reutilizing the current bricks," McGuire replied. "We would have to take the current wall down and build three rows. You would be a little lower than what you are today. But then we would rebuild the brick wall closer to home plate, reutilizing as many of the bricks and making it look exactly the same as it does now."

Wrigley Field, originally named Weeghman Park, was built in 1914 for $250,000, with a seating capacity of 14,000. The Cubs moved into the park in 1916 and since 1984 have built a new home clubhouse, added lights, constructed private luxury boxes, added an elevator and moved the press box and broadcast booths.

But they haven't been able to add substantial amounts of seats, something Boston has been able to accomplish at Fenway Park. The Red Sox added $50 seats on top of the Green Monster wall in left field in 2003 and have plans to add seats to the right-field roof in '04.

Boston led the majors with an average ticket price of $42.34 in 2003, according to Team Marketing Report, charging between $225 and $275 for seats behind home plate. The Cubs ranked third in the majors with an average ticket price of $24.21 and are expected to announce a price hike for the 2004 season.

Boston's ownership group is considering whether to continue to renovate Fenway or to build a new ballpark. Would the Cubs consider leaving Wrigley if they weren't allowed park revisions?

McGuire was asked that question at the Cubs Convention and said: "Every action we have taken, politically probably to our detriment, has been clearly to extend the life of Wrigley Field."

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