ABC Supply Stadium – page 2

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The Design

I’ve seen numerous examples over the years of new ballparks that have been designed by architects that don’t typically work on baseball stadiums and have been built by construction companies that lack experience in this realm.

To put it mildly, the results are mixed, sometimes calling for teams or municipalities to spend lots of money fixing things that were designed and/or constructed poorly.

While there is some of that in ABC Supply Stadium, I think the good outweighs the bad. And I think it’s indisputable that the park couldn’t have been designed and built this quickly and inexpensively had a more traditional approach to design and construction been employed.

Let’s address the best elements first.

The fact that the main concourse wraps completely around the field is a plus, particularly as it runs along the river on the left-field side. Jurgella lists this as his favorite place in the park, and adds there’s more programming that can be worked into that corner.

Other spaces in the outfield are also quite nice, like the plaza just inside the center-field gate and the spots for food trucks and/or tents in right field. The spot for these outside food vendors is a much better idea than at the Rocket City Trash Pandas’ park, which maroons them way, way out in the farthest reaches of center field, where few fans tend to roam. Here, the businesses get a lot of sales because there’s plenty of foot traffic there.

The seating bowl brings most of the fans close to the action, and the seating width and legroom seem to be quite comfortable.  The Goose Island Party Deck in the right-field corner (photo above) and the Coors Light Chill Zone (below) down the third-base line are also well-placed and very popular.

Partly because the Stadium Authority is a non-profit entity, the ballpark has to be capable of hosting more than just baseball games. That’s why the outfield wall is straight from the left-field foul pole to left center field, but has a more traditional curve in center field to right field. This way, a football or soccer field can be accommodated, with the field running parallel to the left-field foul line. That’s also why there is artificial turf in the stadium.

Further, banquets and community meetings can be held year-round in the upper-level Beloit Health System Club, which can accommodate up to 300 attendees. The space is beautiful (photo below), and one side features a balcony for fans who want to sit on the outside to watch the game, and on the other, windows with a wonderful view of the river.

A lot of the areas fans don’t see were critically important in the design. “First and foremost, we had to design a stadium that would be able to meet the new facility standards” established by MLB, said D.J. Charmet of JPR, the architects for the park. That meant player spaces under the stands had to be of certain minimum sizes. The Snappers are quite proud that the park meets all of the new standards.

There are design elements that don’t make a lot of sense to me, though.  For one thing, there are no traditional suites in the ballpark. I’m talking about an enclosed space – usually on the upper level — with some form of seating or a patio on the outside, holding about 12 to 20 fans. Here, the upper level has the huge lounge on the third-base side, an area called the First National Bank and Trust Group Suites (with a balcony) on the first base side, and the press and production area in the middle. So the two things lacking are an upper level party deck (most modern Minor League stadiums have them at both ends of the upper level) and small-group suites.

It was explained to me that the first-base-side lounge – quite robust at 1,250 square feet — can hold up to 100 fans, and was really meant for multiple smaller groups to share. That’s certainly not the typical approach.

Further, there is an area all the way at the end of the first-base side of the upper level that, if you use your imagination, could one day be a party deck (photos above). Right now, it is a partly covered, semi-finished space that has an odd partial roof and no traditional flooring. Further, it has two doors that are along the same wall – one to the upper-level hallway and the other to an interior set of stairs – but nothing that would allow fans there to escape to the main concourse in case of a fire. Honestly, it’s one of the odder spaces I’ve seen at a ballpark. It almost seems like they decided to declare the ballpark finished without deciding what this space is supposed to be. If it’s meant to be a party deck, it’s unlike any I’ve seen.

Remember what I keep saying about how things are different here than other places.

Another anomaly is in the press area. I love its location – right behind home plate, and it’s wonderfully spacious – but if you are sitting down, you can’t see the field. That’s because the bottoms of the windows are higher than the eye level of a media person sitting down to do work. This is totally because the windows were designed to look beautiful from the seating bowl, and they do. But for someone sitting down within the press or broadcast area, you need either a high chair or a periscope to watch the action on the field.

Believe me, this isn’t the only example of a pressbox in the Minors that makes it difficult for media members to see the pitcher and batter.

Another item that most fans won’t encounter – but that strikes me as odd – is how close the passenger elevator and the service elevator are to each other. You usually don’t see that – although many two-story pro ballparks don’t even have a service elevator.

This is not to nitpick the park’s design. It’s more to highlight how a park can turn out differently when the people designing and building it haven’t already done a sophisticated baseball stadium from scratch. I hope JPR and CCI do more ballparks, because they have some good ideas.

The bottom line is that the park has to work for the people who paid for it and who are buying tickets to use it. I think ABC Supply Stadium does this very well.

When I asked CCI’s Hartwig how he felt the day after the park opened, he replied “Humble is the best way to describe it. I was at the game last night watching everyone enjoy something our team was a part of for a year. So many gave up weekends, nights, holidays and more to make this fantastic stadium a reality and I’m just humbled to have been a part of it.”

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The Essentials

Geronimo!!

I’m starting this section with the name of the Food & Beverage service for ABC Supply Stadium. That’s because the concessions they offer are mind-blowingly awesome, and definitely check the box of being “local.”

But before we check out the culinary delights, let’s talk about what it’s like to attend a game in Beloit.

We’ve already established that it’s free to park in the lots and along the streets here. That’s wonderful. If you only want to attend games on Fridays and Saturdays, and you don’t plan in advance so you are constantly purchasing your seats when you arrive at the park, well, then, it’s pretty pricey to watch baseball here. The first few rows behind the backstop cost $21, and the rest of the box seats in the infield are $17. However, for games Sunday through Thursday, those same seats are $19 and $15, and if you buy them in advance, you can knock another $2 off of those prices. $17 and $13 is more reasonable.

Reserved seats farther down the lines are $14 on Fridays and Saturdays if purchased on the day of the game.

The pricing in the souvenir shop on the main concourse is on the high side, but the selection is good. It helps that the store is nearly 1,000 square feet. “You could’ve fit the old store (at Pohlman) in my back room here,” says a proud Bob Villarreal, the Merchandise Manager. Not only that, there is a dressing room where fans can try on apparel. It’s a great idea, even though the space wasn’t designed with that in mind. There was kind of a quirky alcove in a corner, so Villarreal decided to make it into a changing room.

Adult t-shirts ranged from $28 to $38, and there were two long-sleeve Nike Dri-FIT tees for $84 that were really attractive, if a little on the pricey side. Men’s and women’s polos from Nike were $76. Ladies’ tees ranged from $26 to $36, while shirts for kids were $25 and $32.

Fitted caps for adults were $38, while adjustable models were $25 and $32. For kids, they were $25. There were also cute skull caps for $25.

And, yes, they had lapel pins, which is my litmus test for the quality of a ballpark store, although at $10, they were pricier than at most Minor League stadiums.

In moving into the new park, the team decided to completely overhaul the gameday experience for the fans. This makes sense, since there is now audio-visual equipment that helps bring it to life. One big addition is the use of game “hosts” who entertain the crowd with contests and promotions between innings. The two hosts while I was in attendance were Maria Valentyn (a Wisconsin native) and Brett Grant (see photo), and they were full of energy and the crowd interacted really well with them.

One between-innings event that I’d never seen before was called The Snappy Chase (photo at the top of this section). Snappy is the mascot, and kids were urged to gather near the center-field wall so they could chase Snappy across the field after the 4^th inning was over. That was cute.

Normally as I roam around a ballpark, I don’t pay much attention to the PA announcer, but the one at ABC Supply Stadium caught my attention. I learned his name is Sky Drysdale (if that’s not a name destined to work in baseball, I don’t know what is!), and I loved his approach. No, he was not zany and madcap. To the contrary, he was very professional, and his many years in radio came through in his very smooth delivery. What made him really stand out to me was that he delivered more information than your standard announcer. For example, he informed the crowd that the Beloit batter coming to the plate hit the first home run in the new park. He threw in a lot of little nuggets like that, and I enjoyed the additional insights that those nuggets provided.

The video board in left field is a beauty, but for the first homestand, it wasn’t being used to nearly its full potential – no batter’s or pitcher’s stats, just a big image of the team’s logo (with that odd phrase “Farewell Season”). I learned that the hardware and software was so new to the production crew – and the learning curve so steep – that they were keeping it simple. It will no doubt provide lots of additional info in the future.

OK, I’ve made you wait long enough for a discussion of the food. At a lot of Minor League parks, especially below Double-A and Triple-A, a team will sign a deal with one of the national food-service vendors and pretty much the same hot dogs and tenders will be served there as at lots of other venues.

This might be the happiest example of all of the “that’s not the way things work here.”

Geronimo Hospitality Group, which is part of Hendricks Holding Company’s portfolio of community businesses, not only operates numerous eateries in town, they manage the food and beverage operations at the park. In addition to the standard fare like hot dogs and nachos, they offer Mexican street tacos at El Jefe’s, either chicken or carnitas for $9, and elote corn for $6.

This being Wisconsin, the cased meats have to be top shelf, and The Sausage Haus offers a garlic sausage for $10, a dog made with kobe beef for $13 and two sizes of brats ($8 and $11) made by Klement’s.

There were two food “trucks” — really tents — in right field when I was there (photos above). Lil Frank’s BBQ featured pulled pork, rib tips and beans, and Coco’s Tamales had chimichangas, quesadillas, tamales, burritos … and the best drinks I’ve had at a ballpark in years. In addition to horchata and a Mexican lemonade, there was a drink like a tea made with hibiscus leaves served in a mason jar that was $8. It was truly out of this world.

A very popular spot in the ballpark is near these tents. The Deck Deck Goose bar right by the right-field foul pole serves a variety of libations, with the most popular being an Old Fashioned in the form of a slushie ($10).

By far the longest line was at The Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream stand beyond third base. A single scoop in a cone is $6, with a double scoop being $2 more. Yes, this is another Wisconsin company.

Now for the truly unusual and innovative food items that you don’t expect at a ballpark. I had a smoked whitefish salad sandwich ($12) that was delicious, and an order of Brat-chos ($12). The latter is a big bowl of chips, slices of bratwurst, pickled red onion, red cabbage, white cheese sauce and Spotted Cow mustard. It is very messy, and absolutely fantastic.

For a ballpark this small, the food offerings are remarkable. On the left is the whitefish salad sandwich, available at the concession stand behind third base. On the right are three truly wonderful offerings: the rainbow funnel cake even includes whipped cream and a cherry on top, at the Wisco-on-a-Stick stand; the Brat-chos are a hearty bowl of chips and slices of brats, from the Pohlmans Stadium Grub stand; the hibiscus drink is from Coco’s Tamales tent in right field.

At the Wisco on a Stick stand (a take-off on Midwest State Fair items) behind first base is the mammoth Caveman Pork Shank ($18) and Chicken & Waffles, which is popcorn chicken in a waffle cone with hot sauce ($8). This is where they have the Rainbow Funnel Cake ($10), which is funnel-cake-style “fries” smothered with every form of sugary goodness (in rainbow colors) you can imagine. Positively addictive and decadent.

By the way, for the fans that missed being able to order cheese curds at Pohlman, they are on the menu at the new park!

For a stadium that only anticipates a couple of thousand fans per game, the attention paid to the food offerings is truly phenomenal … and we all know how important concessions are to a park’s gameday experience.

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Summary

You can make a strong case that the last new park to open in 2021 also carries the biggest impact for its market. It’s not just hyperbole that ABC Supply Stadium saved baseball in the small town of Beloit. Minus this facility – a no-strings-attached facility built with private funds – the Snappers would’ve been contracted. Everyone is in agreement on this.

One of the many out-of-the-ordinary aspects of this park is that it opened three months after the start of the season. “We could’ve waited until next year to open the ballpark, but we decided to open as soon as we could,” notes John Gackstetter, Asset Manager at Hendricks Holding Company. He oversees the firm’s development activities, like ABC Supply Stadium. “We figured that we could learn from our experiences this season.”

The lessons being learned – by the front office and the fans – are remarkable. With a modern, lovely new home and a completely new approach to the gameday experience, baseball fans are enjoying saying farewell at the same time as hello. I mean, where else does a baseball team operate that way?

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