New home for St. Paul Saints opening May 21

By Kaitlin Merkel/Murphy News Service

Construction of CHS Field, home to the St. Paul Saints starting this season, is expected to be completed Feb. 27, St. Paul Saints general manager Derek Sharrer said.

The $60-million project in the Lowertown St. Paul neighborhood includes the stadium, demolition of an existing warehouse and infrastructure improvements, is a joint effort between the Saints ball club (contributing $11 million), the city of St. Paul ($22 million) and the state of Minnesota ($30 million), Sharrer said.

Original plans were for the ballpark to cost $54 million. Sharrer said the additional $6 million was necessary after workers found a number of soil remediation and sewer issues that had to be addressed.

The stadium will primarily serve as the home ballpark for the Saints, who play in the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball. It will also be the home park for Hamline University’s baseball team, multiple levels of the Minnesota high school state baseball tournament, American Legion baseball games and other adult municipal baseball leagues, Sharrer said.

The Saints front office and the city of St. Paul anticipate the ballpark will serve a variety of functions outside of baseball. In fact, many outside-sponsored events have already booked the venue, Brad Meyer said. Meyer is the public services manager of St. Paul’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

“[As] an indication that this ballpark will have a wide-reaching impact on the city, the popular Internet Cat Video Festival just locked in CHS Field as the host for the 2015 festival on Aug. 12, which will bring more than 10,000 visitors to the city and spur additional economic impact,” Meyer said.

The stadium will also host a 5K in April and an event called Grill Fest in May, Sharrer said, adding, “The Saints will play 50-55 games, [but] CHS Field is actually going to host well over 200 events every year.”

The stadium is also expected to positively affect the economy of Lowertown, which has a growing entertainment district, and the entire city of St. Paul, Meyer said.

“CHS Field is expected to attract 400,000 visitors and spur millions of dollars in economic impact annually,” Meyer said.

CHS Field sits on a site previously occupied by the Diamond Products/Gillette warehouse that had been vacated for many years, Bill Thurmes said. Thurmes is Lowertown Capitol River Council’s chair of the Lowertown Ballpark Design and Construction Committee. He called the stadium a “great amenity” for the city.

Studies were conducted to compare the impact of the Xcel Energy Center, located on the west side of downtown, to CHS Field, located on the east side.

“The Xcel Energy Center does just over 800,000 people in eight months and CHS Field will draw over 400,000 people in four months,” Sharrer said. “It’ll be delivered differently, but it’s nearly the same impact over the course of four months as it is over the course of eight months for Xcel.”

“It’s never been just a Saints ballpark. The state wouldn’t have funded it if it was,” Sharrer said. “The city of St. Paul wouldn’t have cared all that much about this ballpark if it was just for the St. Paul Saints.”

The Saints played their home games at Midway Stadium since 1993, a venue that Sharrer said “was never built for the Saints … it just wasn’t intended to seat 5,000-6,000 people a night and to service 5,000-6,000 people a night.”

CHS Field will seat slightly more than 7,000 people, an increase from a capacity of about 6,000 at Midway Stadium.

Sharrer said CHS Field will also include a variety of upgraded features and seating options, including a craft beer area, home run porch, terraces for group seating, an art gallery and a 360-degree walk-around concourse. The stadium also features an indoor-outdoor club level that will seat 250 people and be open year-round to reserve for private events.

The first Saints home game at CHS Field is set to take place May 21 against the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks, but Sharrer predicted there will be various collegiate and high school games played prior to that date.

Reporter Kaitlin Merkel is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.