The city of Hillsboro, Oregon and the Hops baseball team faced an enormous problem. To become compliant with the new standards that MLB had imposed on Minor League ballparks, it was going to cost over $100 million to do the necessary renovations on their existing park — a park that was only 13 years old. That’s when the decision to pivot occurred. Why throw that much money at a facility that still wasn’t going to have all of the amenities that today’s fan desires?

Instead, they pivoted to building a brand-new ballpark.

And the perfect spot to build it was on an oddly shaped parcel of land just a ground-rule double away from the old park.

That new stadium is called (for now) Hops Ballpark, and one can scarcely believe that the old and the new facilities were built for the same sport, as the new version has a mind-boggling array of amenities that would never have been possible at the old place. And number 1 on the list of new amenities is food-preparation capabilities that place their concessions at the very top of the Minors.

So check out how this new showplace came to be, and how its features meet the big-league demands of fans in the Portland area. It’s all in our in-depth review of Hops Ballpark.

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