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6 Steps to Ready Your Stadium for The Ultimate Fan Experience

Posted on April 6, 2022

In baseball, there’s only one opening day each year. There is no second chance for a do-over when you need to get your stadium ready for the players and the fans.

While your team is prepping for the big game, HPM provides a whole continuum of program management services that includes everything from coordinating all your various stakeholders and funding options in the beginning stages to reigning in the beehive of activities necessary to ready the stadium for the first game. Through our decades of experience, we have become experts in stadiums, arenas, and athletic training facilities.

HPM partners with major league and minor league baseball organizations on stadium projects and many other signature athletic facilities on university campuses. So, we know a thing or two about getting your stadium fan-ready.

As one of the nation’s top program management firms, HPM’s program management services guide every facet of your project from beginning to end. Our dedicated full-time program managers maintain a singular focus – which leads to increased efficiency and complete accountability.

Is Your Stadium Ready for the Ultimate Fan Experience?

The HPM continuum of services includes six stages that build upon the knowledge gained in the previous step. Let’s take a look at how each of our steps and services can help you on your next project:

Planning- Our team understands the importance of project definition and determining performance metrics that will keep your project on time and on budget. We sit down with stakeholders to determine needs versus wants and how to prioritize everything against when the facility should open and how much it should cost.
Design- During this stage, we help our clients with design reviews and monthly preconstruction reports to ensure that your stadium will be completed before opening day. Plus, we work with the architects and engineers to deliver plans to the builder which maximize player development and fan experience simultaneously. For instance, the Atlanta Braves Spring Training field is the exact same dimensions as their regular season field. The sod is the exact same sod, and the infield mix is exactly the same. HPM understood the importance of the team practicing and training on a field that’s as identical to their home field as possible.
Execution- HPM inserts our services at any point during the lifecycle of a facility, but our company was founded as construction managers. For example, the New York Mets hired us to manage the construction of a $55-million facility renovation to their Clover Park, formerly named First Data Field, in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

You get the team ready for opening day…we get your facilities ready.

No Delay of Game: Building the Atlanta Braves Spring Training Facility in North Port, Florida

Posted on May 20, 2019

The date of the opening game was set. It would be a big public relations event with 8,000 people on-site. There was no flexibility in terms of the deadline. No room for error. The Atlanta Braves’ new $125 million training facility in North Port, Florida had to be ready to go on March 24, 2019. No wiggle room.

With HPM taking the leadership role on the project, ground was broken in late fall of 2017. But according to Alan Butler, HPM’s lead on the project, the Braves’ relationship with the initial general contractor was disjointed from the start. With only 16 months left until the March 24, 2019 deadline, the Braves’ organization opted to change contractors.

This type of dramatic change would normally wreak havoc on a project schedule, but HPM kept the job moving, maintained the schedule, and the project was completed on March 1, 2019.

Butler said, “We turned a cow pasture into a stadium in 15 months, even though there was a change in contractor late in the game.”

In addition to the contractor change, many changes were made — there were more than 1,300 requests for information — throughout the course of the project as well.

Butler praised Sarasota-based Tandem Construction, who joined Southfield, Michigan based Barton Malow on the job, for their hard work and professionalism throughout the project. “They knocked it out of the park. They really performed,” Butler added.

The stadium during construction (December 2018)

The project team was able to shave roughly $13 million off the price of the project through value engineering. He explained the original budget was $125 million, but the project team got it down to $108 million initial contract value without materially changing the project.

The land for the facility was donated by private developer Mattamy Homes. The 80-acre facility features a ballpark with 6,200 seats, a three-story clubhouse, seven practice fields, and state-of-the-art meeting areas and locker rooms. CoolToday, a local air conditioning, heating, plumbing, and electrical services company, entered into a 20-year naming rights agreement with the Braves, and the facility’s official name is CoolToday Park.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the project was the field had to be exactly the same as the Braves’ home field in Atlanta, SunTrust Park.

“The stadium is the exact same dimensions as their regular season field. The sod is the exact same sod, and the infield mix is exactly the same as SunTrust Park. The team practices and trains on a field that’s as identical to their home field as possible,” he said.

The final month leading up to opening day was the most challenging. He added, “The last month was brutally busy. We were looking at everything, putting on all the final touches, making sure everything was done just right. We had to scramble to get things done very quickly. But we did it.”

“With HPM on site, the Braves’ staff could stay in Atlanta working but could still be confident their capital project was going well. We were in charge of all communications, daily quality checks, cost management, and project monitoring and reporting. We led the construction of an amazing facility for the Atlanta Braves and built a strong relationship with the organization. And we’re very proud of both.”
Alan Butler, HPM Senior Program Manager