Granderson Stadium at Les Miller Field is a new ballpark on the campus of the University of Illinois Chicago, funded in large part by a donation from MLB player and former UIC baseball standout Curtis Granderson. A large portion of the $12.5M stadium’s exterior façade consists of Premier Ultra® Burnished Masonry Units manufactured by County Materials.
Granderson Stadium replaces a very dated facility that offered minimal seating capacity or fan and player facilities. In addition to being the home of the UIC Flames baseball team, it serves as the venue for local high school games, and services over 38 youth baseball teams annually.
The ballpark footprint encompasses 125,000 sq. ft., excluding the existing synthetic playing field that the stadium was designed around. It now includes seating for 5,000 within an aluminum seating bowl structure. Fan amenities, including restrooms and concessions, are located below and underneath the seating bowl. New player dugouts and a home team meeting room have been added. A center concession stand and large, 30-seat hospitality suite with small press facilities are integrated into a two-story structure behind home plate. Outdoor berm seating around the playing field and beyond the ballpark footprint encircles the ballpark.
Populus, the project’s architectural firm, designed the ballpark for cost effectiveness and in response to a short timeframe for construction. The simple but elegant design features two straight sections down each baseline and a single change in geometry behind home plate to connect both baselines of the ballpark. Keeping the site flat was a time- and budget-saving design solution.
Due to the site’s poor soil conditions, additional excavation was needed to find suitable soil for the building’s foundation. Given the urban site location in Chicago, it was more cost effective to reuse the excavation spoils as additional spectator seating berms around the perimeter of the ballpark. As a result, the seating berms around the perimeter made the ballpark feel more enclosed and intimate than originally planned.
UIC wanted a traditional-looking ballpark. Red brick was chosen as one of the cladding materials for its color and traditional appeal. However the majority of the exterior stadium envelope consists of 8,000 units of County Materials’ Premier Ultra® Burnished concrete block in Quiet Beach. The color provides a perfect neutral foil for the warm brick, and the easily washable burnished surface is superior to brick in highly trafficked areas such as near the restrooms and concessions. The ground face concrete block also provided a very cost effective alternative to natural stone without compromising appearance.
Installation time was also an important factor. The entire ballpark had to be constructed in one offseason. Although the design team began work in April, 2013, construction did not begin until September 1 to allow the ballpark to be open during the summer months for youth baseball. The project had to be completed for the college season the following spring. The winter of 2013-14 was extremely severe, which made timely completion of the project challenging. The larger unit size of the Premier Ultra® Burnished block, as opposed to traditional brick sizes, helped speed the project by reducing the amount of labor required.
Granderson Stadium opened in April 2014 to highly successful acclaim by UIC, the general public and the baseball community. In November of 2014, the ballpark was awarded Ballpark Digest’s prestigious Editor’s Choice Award. The facility has been well received by all who have attended games there, and is universally appreciated as an asset to the Chicago community.
