The Chicago White Sox lack the popular, “lovable loser” aura and the revered Wrigley Field of their Northside rival Cubs. But the team, also known as “The Pale Hose” and “The Good Guys,” represent the Second City’s south side with a feisty attitude embodied by its fiery manager, Ozzie Guillen.
Last year, the team pulled up stakes from its former spring-training home in Tucson and moved to Glendale’s Camelback Ranch, a state-of-the-art facility it shares with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Glendale’s city government and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority ponied up $158 million for facility and infrastructure development. Mortenson, the project’s general-contracting firm, hired HKS, a Dallas-based architectural firm, to plan the facility.
In addition to such aesthetic amenities as sloped rooflines that mimic the horizon’s mountainous terrain, Camelback also offers advanced training facilities and an innovative video system that aids player coaching and development. The teams signed 20-year leases, with four subsequent, team-controlled, five-year options.
Mortenson hired Airpark Signs and Graphics (Tempe) to develop the facility’s wayfinding and signage. For the project, HKS specified rusted-steel I-beams and aluminum cabinets to create a somewhat spartan aesthetic reflective of desert environs. HKS created the signs’ design in Illustrator files and presented them to Airpark.
To produce most of the building-ID signs, the entrance monument and other architectural graphics, Airpark waterjet-cut the metal and decorated it with Matthews acrylic-polyurethane paint in its paint booth. The company produced the steel directional panels, which identify seat sections and concourses, via a combination of plasma and waterjet cutting.
The shop fabricated the sign cabinets from 0.125-in. aluminum and glued a fabricated, 1-in.-sq., aluminum frame onto the panels, flush-trimmed them with a handheld router and painted the panels with Matthews acrylic-polyurethane paint. Building-ID signs comprise ½-in.-thick, aluminum panels produced on a 4 x 8-ft., waterjet cutter. Airpark also produced ADA signs using exterior-grade photopolymer. Per HKS specs, no signs are internally illuminated.
White Way Sign (Mount Prospect, IL) built the scoreboard and its integral, identifying signage. According to Jim Wood, the company’s national-sales VP, company representatives met with team and Glendale city officials, as well as Mortenson and HKS decisionmakers. After a lengthy summit and “some give and take,” all parties reached a consensus on scoreboard specs.
The installed scoreboard, which measures 45 x 60 ft., includes a 36-ft.-long, digital scoreboard with red-LED lights and electronic team names; two, 25mm, full-color, LED sponsor displays; a 20mm, full-color LED display; and a 34mm, amber, general-purpose messageboard. White Way also fabricated the channel letters and team-logo signage integral to the scoreboard from 0.080-in. aluminum.
Understandably, Wood cited heat as the most significant potential threat to electronic message centers (EMCs) installed in desert climes. He said, “It’s important to keep a consistent airflow through the displays. We built a thermostat-controlled fan system into each display.”
Also, Wood noted the extra challenge of developing EMCs for sports facilities. “There’s no ‘soft opening’ with a sports arena or stadium. A system has to meet customer expectations and be ready to go on Opening Day. This requires plenty of communication and cooperation with the general contractor. Fortunately, whenever we had a question or coordination issue, Mortenson was very responsive.”