Marlins Park

LoanDepot Park is a retractable roof stadium located in Miami, Florida. It is the home of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins. It is located on on the site of the former Miami Orange Bowl in Little Havana about west of Downtown Miami. Construction was completed in March 2012 for the 2012 season.

LoanDepot Park was LEED certified as the greenest MLB park in 2012. The building is the sixth MLB stadium to have a retractable roof. With a seating capacity of 37,442, it is the third-smallest stadium in Major League Baseball by official capacity, and the smallest by actual capacity.

The facility hosted a second-round pool of the 2013 World Baseball Classic, a first-round pool of the 2017 World Baseball Classic, and hosted the 2017 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. The park also hosts soccer matches, fundraising galas, and other events during the winter. It also hosted the Miami Beach Bowl from 2014 through 2016.

The stadium is designed in a neomodern form of baseball architecture.

History

Planning

Prior to the construction of LoanDepot Park, the Marlins played home games at what was originally known as Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami Gardens, which was known by a number of different names during the Marlins' tenure there. Joe Robbie Stadium was built in 1987 as home to the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL), and was designed as a multi-purpose stadium built primarily for football, but its design also accommodated baseball and soccer. Dolphins founder Joe Robbie believed it was a foregone conclusion that MLB would come to South Florida, so he wanted the stadium designed to make any necessary renovations for baseball as seamless as possible. The Marlins arrived in 1993 and during their time at the stadium, the Marlins drew more than 3 million people in their inaugural season and also won two World Series titles, in 1997 and 2003. The stadium continues to be home to the Dolphins, and since 2008, the Miami Hurricanes from the University of Miami.

Since the advent of Major League Baseball in Miami, multiple issues were raised regarding the unsuitability of Joe Robbie Stadium for professional baseball. Among those cited were the poor seat and sight-line configuration for baseball viewing, references to Miami's NFL team such as the logos and color scheme remaining visible in the stadium despite being in baseball configuration, and poor fan environment due to the distance of the action in relation to the seats. The climate in Miami during baseball season was not conducive for the sport and the audience, as games were often either played in heat or would be rained out, owing to the tropical climate in South Florida. These were suspected by the Florida Marlins for having poor fan attendance, as well as players’ performance at home games. By 2004, the Florida Marlins were the only team in baseball playing in an NFL-configured sporting stadium.

After original owner Wayne Huizenga claimed he lost more than $30 million on the team, he sold the Marlins in early 1999 to John W. Henry. Thereafter, the Marlins began a concerted effort to get their own baseball-only venue. Henry's vision included a retractable roof, believed by this time to be essential due to South Florida's climate and baseball's summertime schedule. Several ideas were explored on where a new ballpark should be built. The team's desire to leave their original home made for an awkward business relationship over leasing issues with Huizenga, who continued to own the then-named Pro Player Stadium. By January 2002, Henry's stadium proposals were effectively scrapped when MLB Commissioner Bud Selig engineered a three-franchise ownership swap—Henry left to own the Boston Red Sox, while Montreal Expos owner Jeffrey Loria took over the Marlins.

Loria and president David Samson continued the search for a new, baseball-only retractable-roof ballpark. The Marlins' second World Series championship in 2003 created some local exuberance for a new ballpark. Then, in January 2004, the City of Miami proposed building a baseball-only stadium for the Marlins at the site of the Miami Orange Bowl that would adjoin the existing football stadium along its northern flank.

In December 2004, Miami's NFL team notified the Marlins of its intention to terminate the lease at Joe Robbie Stadium by 2010, potentially leaving the Marlins without a stadium to host its home games. In the ensuing years between 2004 and 2009, the Marlins negotiated with local and state officials regarding funding the construction of a baseball-specific stadium before the termination of its lease at Joe Robbie Stadium. In 2005, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria and president David Samson failed to come to an agreement with local and state officials regarding the funding of a baseball-specific stadium. Subsequently, the Marlins explored relocation options in the ensuing years from Las Vegas, Portland, and San Antonio. The specter of relocation pushed Charlie Crist, then Governor of Florida and other local mayors to release statements in favor of public funding for the new stadium.

After the Marlins explored other options, including at the former site of the Miami Arena, in August 2007, the Miami Hurricanes announced they were leaving the Orange Bowl, which made the newly-vacant site the most attractive option for local governments.

Public funding and groundbreaking

In February 2008, the Miami city commission and the Miami-Dade county commission came to an initial agreement to fund the new stadium. The Orange Bowl was subsequently demolished in March 2008 to make way for the new ballpark. A delay in the public funding of the ballpark was caused by a lawsuit filed in the Miami-Dade circuit court by a local car dealer, upon which the circuit court judge ruled in favor of the Marlins in November 2008. That following March in 2009, both the city and the county commission finalized approval for the sale of bonds for funding of the stadium, along with the Florida Marlins to be renamed the Miami Marlins upon the opening of the new stadium. Construction began with a groundbreaking ceremony in July 2009. The total cost of construction for the ballpark was estimated to be $634 million, with 80% of that funded by the city and the county. Due to the structure of the bonds financed over 40 years, it was estimated that the principal and the interest paid by the city and county would accrue to $2.4 billion over the lifetime of the bonds. Between 2009 and 2010, a series of leaked documents from Major League Baseball showed a disparity between the Marlins’ intake in MLB revenue sharing compared to the operating costs of the franchise, suggesting a willful misrepresentation of the Marlins’ profit margins under the Loria ownership as well as Loria and Samson's mismanagement of the Marlins in order to leverage the local government to provide a lion's share of the funding for the stadium. During the 2011–12 offseason, Mayor of Miami Regalado publicized details of the contract and expressed concern regarding certain clauses dedicated to the parking facilities and the maintenance of the stadium. Marlins Park began operations on April 4, 2012, for Opening Day of the 2012 season.

New ownership and further changes

In 2017, the Loria ownership announced its intention to sell the Miami Marlins. A group of investors led by Derek Jeter and Bruce Sherman took over the Marlins organization in August 2017. Changes to the stadium, including a new color scheme, moving the Home Run sculpture, and obtaining naming rights to the stadium were achieved during the Jeter regime.

On March 31, 2021, the Marlins announced that it had sold naming rights to Marlins Park to LoanDepot, renaming the facility LoanDepot Park; terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The naming rights to the stadium reportedly brings $10 million per annum to the Marlins.

Design

Contemporary architecture

LoanDepot Park has the distinction of being the first MLB park designed in what stadium planners are calling the "contemporary" architectural style. The architecture is intended to make a statement about the present-day culture of the city in which the stadium stands. It rejects the nostalgic idiom of the 20 consecutive new (plus three renovated) retro ballparks that opened in the two decades after Camden Yards was built. Owner Jeffrey Loria, who spearheaded the design, wanted his building to be "different and experimental." Loria said, "I thought it was time for baseball to be innovative."

In early 2008, Loria happened to be in London at the same time as some architects from Populous who were there on another project. The group met in a hotel lobby to begin discussing design ideas. Loria described the meeting:

When it all started, the architects came to me and asked what I had envisioned. Was I looking to have a retro stadium? Did we have that in mind? I said, "No retro, no art-deco, no looking back. Miami is a spectacular city, looking ahead. We need to be looking forward. I'd like to see us build a great, 'contemporary' building."

We had to think about some kind of design for it and what it might look like ... I really did not want it to be just another ballpark. I wasn't interested in a 1970s or '80s doughnut ... I wanted it to be a statement of what Miami is all about—a contemporary city. Miami is an important American city and architecture makes your city great. The idea was to create something very contemporary.

Loria then sketched his idea of a round building on a napkin and told the architects to bring him back some real drawings. Exec architect Earl Santee, who was present at the meeting, said, "Mr. Loria told us to make a piece of art."

The architects returned to their Kansas City offices and began brainstorming in April 2008. "We were waiting for a client willing to break the etromold", said Greg Sherlock, the project's lead designer at Populous. Loria "sort of let us do our thing and explore something unique. We knew from the beginning that this was going to be something new and different." As a result, classic elements such as redbrick, limestone, and muted forest-green seats or fences, would not be found anywhere in Marlins Park. Any visible steel trusses would be functionally required to be that way, unlike retro-style trusses which tend to be exposed and bare for aesthetics. According to Sherlock, the structure would convey "that a ballpark doesn't necessarily have to be bricks and steel to translate a message about its location. It can be interpreted in a fresh way." The stadium would also not be symmetrical like the "cookie-cutter" stadiums of the pre-Camden, modern era.

Populous began conducting feasibility studies for their "primary design objectives." The top objective was creating ''"a ballpark that is quintessentially Miami,"'' which meant, according to a list of adjectives that the architects drew up: "palms, destination, diverse, recreation, and beach." A similar list was drawn up for the Little Havana neighborhood around the future park: "Cuba, pastels, canopies, organic, and everything is unique." They created a presentation for the Marlins tailored to Loria's background in the art business with concepts such as "the site is a gallery space with the ballpark representing gallery walls", and "pure art ... pure color ... pure baseball." Four different initial designs were presented, all of which were stark departures from previous ballpark architecture. Both the Marlins' and Populous' favorite choice was a design of an angular white-curves-and-glass facade—a metaphor for the "water merging with land" landscape of the Miami area—which was close to what eventually became the final design.

"For the first time, you can embrace art and architecture and baseball in one building form," Santee said. "It's not just the art in the building, but the building itself is a piece of art."

"If you're looking for a label, I'd say 'contemporary'," Sherlock said. As well:

In this particular case, we didn't adopt anything stylistically. It's sculpture quality, and with sculpture, there are no rules. We wanted an experience that connects the fan experience to the city of Miami and its people and its climate and culture.

"All about Miami"

The ballpark is intended to embody Miami so much that its emblematic features would look out-of-place if they were put in other cities.

"We used Miami as an excuse to do things that other cities couldn't get away with," team President David Samson said. "Everywhere you look, it's things that if they were anywhere else, people would say, 'You can't do that.' In Miami, people say, 'Oh, that's Miami.' You have to take advantage where you are."

"Marlins Park is all about Miami," said Sherlock. The exterior is a sculptural monument consisting of gleaming white stucco, steel, aluminum, and glass. The inclining elliptical form avoids creating many rigid, right angles. Angled, cantilevered pedestrian ramps also form elegant geometric shapes. "It's consistent with the essence of the buildings that are down here – white plaster and graceful forms, which are somewhat of an abstraction of the look and feel of Miami Deco", Sherlock continued. Even the parking-garage walls are tiled in Miami-Deco pastels that connect with Little Havana.

As visitors walk from the outside in, they step right on metaphors for Miami's topography, including concrete pavers that in general are either green or blue ("grass" or "sea"). They walk past landscaping that evokes the "beach"—there's even sand—in places. There's cobalt-blue glass at eye level ("ocean"), the stucco and concrete ("land" or "buildings"), and the paler blue-gray glass at the upper levels ("sky"). The seats are also cobalt-blue, facing the naturally green, Bermuda grass field.

When Marlins fans first realized that the original colors of the team would not appear on the seats in the new stadium—and ultimately not on the new uniforms either—some angrily started a petition known as "Project Teal." But Samson said it was necessary to ignore fans' complaints: "I think any time you do something new and different, the knee-jerk reaction from bloggers or people who post comments is negative. But we have blinders on. This ballpark would have never been built if we had listened to the negativity."

Loria, a notable art dealer, took the four bright primary colors off the palette of the late Catalan surrealist, Joan Miró, to conveniently label different zones around the park—green (outfield), red (third-base line), yellow (first-base line) and blue (behind home plate). "If you look carefully, in those sections, they dissolve into the next color, and the colors mix," Loria said. Wide open plazas at the east and colorful west ends of the building, as well as a 360° concourse inside called the Promenade encourages fans to walk around—and to intermingle at stops such as the bars or the bobblehead museum. Dazzling colors are found throughout the interior, including fluorescent lime-green fences, and in modernist & contemporary works of art—including the much-debated animatronic home-run sculpture—that relate to baseball and Miami.

"My idea was to have people use their eyes and encourage them to use their eyes," said Loria. "We wanted a ballpark filled with great baseball, great entertainment, and occasionally, some images to be seen and enjoyed. It's not about an art gallery. But it's about images relating to the game. There are a few of them in the park."

A nightclub featuring loud music and a swimming pool just beyond the left field fence brings a touch of South Beach into the park. ''Taste of Miami'' food court includes such local cuisine as Cuban sandwich

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