Revenue / 08.11.21

Populous Fields the Dream for MLB Game in Iowa Cornfields

Access Staff

VenuesNow (08/09/21) Muret, Don

Major League Baseball's (MLB) inaugural Field of Dreams game in Iowa between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees represents a roughly $5 million investment to construct an 8,000-capacity pop-up venue near the cornfield used for the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams." Key to realizing the project is senior principal for Populous' event group, Todd Barnes, who says its gestation took six years. Back in 2015, Denise Stillman, owner of the property outside of Dyersville in eastern Iowa, contacted MLB about potentially staging a game there, where she had originally planned a 200-acre youth sports complex. The project ultimately entailed moving 30,000 cubic feet of earth to build the new park, while alfalfa fields were razed to clear parking space. "The vision was to have fans walk from the movie site and come through the corn to the MLB park in the reverse direction [of the movie characters] and give them that same experience," Barnes said. He added that the entire venue, with the exception of the field, is temporary. Barnes noted that because of the pandemic, "the site is constricted and when we expanded the clubhouses [in tents], we had to evaluate the overall facilities, which caused changes from the original vision. We moved some aspects of operations to plan for proper circulation and make sure we have the proper ratios. But you go through those same aspects for any ballpark, whether it's permanent or not."

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Tags: Sports , News