CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Guardians Thursday unveiled the first phase of renovations to Progressive Field, 30 years to the day after its April 4 opening in 1994. The work done so far features a reimagined upper deck experience.
Welcome to the new Upper Deck experience at Progressive Field, part of the first phase of a two-year renovation of the ballpark. Crews in October began removing massive sections of seating to create open air experiences on either side of the ballpark.
"We have the new Terrace Garden, which is a beautiful open-air garden that's going to have a grab-and-go beer station for this season,” said the Guardians’ Austin Controulis. “Beautiful views of the city and downtown and that's in the left field area and then we kind of mirrored that in the right field area with the Paul Davis Pennant District, that's a huge group space that we're going to utilize here.
“I think the best part about that for fans is we got rid of the shipping containers, we actually added some seats back in, which is really exciting,” Controulis said. “Those two areas the fans are going to see the most and that's going to impact them the most this year."
The spaces were actually inspired by the success of the Corner Bar added in the 2014-15 renovations.
"It was the first time we really ventured into a space of, OK, we need to mirror baseball with also a social outing and having fun and enjoying summer in Cleveland."
Part of the right field area sits atop the commissary building on East 9th, which allows more space for more food options for fans.
"For me, [what] I'm more excited about is the fry box concept,” said Progressive Field Executive Chef Vishwatej Noth. “You know we wanted fries so badly in this ballpark, we only had a couple of places but now we have it's own space—so chicken bacon ranch, you can't go wrong with that combination. It also can do the Big Moz, mozzarella sticks. We can do it from there as well and there will be a lot more other offerings from the fry box, so that's kind of my happiest thing."
Fans will also notice the new blue seats installed in most of the lower bowl, with the rest to be installed next off-season. That's when the re-imagined Terrace Club space will also be finished. Because of the work on the team's administrative office building that houses the team shop, a new pop-up shop has been set up on Gateway Plaza. Still available are a small amount of ballpark passes for April, the $49 standing-room-only pass that gets you access to the new spaces and includes opening day and the Yankees series.
