Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre is a retractable roof stadium in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated at the base of the CN Tower near the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989 on the former Railway Lands, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball. As well as being improved over the decades, during the MLB offseasons of 2022–24, the stadium was renovated by upgrading the sports facilities and hospitality whilst reducing the capacity for baseball games. While it is primarily a sports venue, the stadium also hosts other large events such as conventions, trade fairs, concerts, travelling carnivals, circuses and monster truck shows.
Previously, the stadium was also home to the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League and the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association. The Buffalo Bills of the National Football League played an annual game at the stadium as part of the Bills Toronto Series from 2008 to 2013. The stadium served as the site of both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2015 Pan American Games.
The stadium was renamed "Rogers Centre" following the 2005 purchase of the stadium by Rogers Communications, the corporation that also owns the Toronto Blue Jays. Despite the name change, the stadium is still commonly referred to as SkyDome in informal contexts among fans. The venue is noted for being the first stadium to have a fully retractable motorized roof, as well as for the 348-room hotel attached to it with 70 rooms overlooking the field. It is the last North American major-league stadium built to accommodate both football and baseball.
History
Background and design
The idea of building a domed stadium can be traced back to the bid that Toronto lost to Montreal as the Canadian candidate city for the 1976 Summer Olympics. In the proposal, an 80,000–100,000 seat complex would be part of the planned Harbour City development on the site of Maple Leaf Stadium.The contemporary impetus for building an enclosed sports venue in Toronto came following the Grey Cup game in November 1982, held at the outdoor Exhibition Stadium. The game, in which the hometown Toronto Argonauts were making their first Grey Cup appearance since 1971, was played in a driving rainstorm that left most of the crowd drenched, leading the media to call it "the Rain Bowl". As many of the seats were completely exposed to the elements, thousands watched the game from the concession section. To make a bad experience even worse, the washrooms overflowed. In attendance that day was Bill Davis, the Premier of Ontario, and the poor conditions were seen by the largest television audience in Canada to that point. The following day, at a rally for the Argos at Toronto City Hall, tens of thousands of people who attended the game began to chant, "We want a dome! We want a dome!"
Seven months later, in June 1983, Davis formally announced a three-person committee would look into the feasibility of building a domed stadium at Exhibition Place. The committee consisted of Paul Godfrey, Larry Grossman and former Ontario Hydro chairman Hugh Macaulay.
The committee examined various projects, including a large indoor stadium at Exhibition Place with an air-supported dome, similar to BC Place in Vancouver. In 1985, an international design competition was launched to design a new stadium, along with selection of a site. Some of the proposed sites included Exhibition Place, Downsview Airport, and York University. The final site was at the base of the CN Tower not far from Union Station, a major railway and transit hub. The Railway Lands were a major Canadian National Railway rail switching yard encompassing the CNR Spadina Roundhouse. Ultimately, the Robbie/Allen concept won because it provided the largest roof opening of all the finalists, and it was the most technically sound.
The stadium was designed by architect Rod Robbie and structural engineer Michael Allen and was constructed by the EllisDon Construction company of London, Ontario and the Dominion Bridge Company of Lachine, Quebec. The stadium's construction lasted about years, from October 1986 to May 1989. The approximate cost of construction was C$570 million which was paid for by the federal government, Ontario provincial government, the City of Toronto, and a large consortium of corporations.
Financing
The stadium was funded by a public–private partnership, with the government paying the largest percentage of the cost. The initial cost of $150 million was greatly underestimated, as the final cost was C$570 million. Two levels of government each initially contributed $30 million. This does not include the value of the land that the stadium sits on, which was owned by the Canada Lands Company and the City of Toronto and was leased for $900,000 a year through 2088. Canada's three main breweries and the Toronto Blue Jays each paid $5 million to help fund the stadium. An additional 26 other Canadian corporations also contributed $5 million, for which they received one of the 161 Skyboxes with four parking spaces and a 99-year exclusive option on stadium advertising. The initial cost of leasing a Skybox ranged from $150,000 to $225,000 a year in 1989 – plus the cost of tickets for all events.The then unusual financing structure created controversy. First of all, there was no public tender for supplies and equipment. Secondly, companies that paid the $5 million fee, such as Coca-Cola, TSN and CIBC, received 100 percent stadium exclusivity, including advertising rights, for the life of their contract that could be extended up to 99 years. Third, the contracts were not put up for bid, meaning there was some doubt the contracts were made at a market rate: Pepsi stated at the time that had it known the terms of the contract it would have paid far more than $5 million for the rights. Local media like NOW Magazine called the amount charged to the companies "scandalously low".
Construction
Construction of the Ontario Stadium Project was spearheaded by lead contractor EllisDon. Several factors complicated the construction: The lands housed a functioning water pumping station that needed to be relocated, the soil was contaminated from a century of industrial use, railway buildings needed to be torn down or moved, and the site was rich with archaeological finds. One of the most complex issues was moving the John Street pumping station across the street to the south of the stadium. Foundations to the stadium were being poured even as the facility continued to function, as construction on its new location had yet to be completed.Because the stadium was the first of its kind in the world, the architects and engineers kept the design simple and used proven technologies to move the roof. It was important the design would work and be reliable as to avoid the various problems that plagued Montreal's Olympic Stadium. The 31-storey-high roof consists of four panels: one is fixed in place and the other three are moved by electrically driven 'train' engines, that run on high-strength railway rails. The roof, which takes 20 minutes to open, was made out of steel trusses covered by corrugated steel cladding, which in turn is covered by a single-ply PVC membrane.
Because of its location south of the major railway corridor, new pedestrian connections had to be built; the infrastructure was part of the reason for the high cost of the stadium. The SkyWalk is an approximately enclosed walkway that leads from the base of the CN Tower and via a bridge connects to Union Station. The John Street cable-stayed bridge was built to provide north–south passage over the rail tracks, linking Front Street with the stadium.
Construction at the site, which at one time was south of the shoreline, unearthed over 1,500 artifacts. These included a 200-year-old French cannon used as ballast for a ship, cannonballs, pottery and a telescope. The stadium was completed two months late, having been planned to open for the first regular season game of the 1989 Toronto Blue Jays season; the team played the first two months of its home schedule at Exhibition Stadium that year.