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Citi Field

Citi Field is the new baseball park for the New York Mets that is being built in Willets Point in the New York City borough of Queens as a replacement for the adjacent Shea Stadium, which was itself constructed in 1964 adjacent to the site of the 1964-1965 World's Fair. It has been designed by HOK Sport. The $850 million Citi Field is being subsidized with $450 million in public funds . Citi Field will reportedly be granted the All-Star Game in 2013. The first regular season home game will be on April 13, 2009 against the San Diego Padres.

Plans for a new Mets ballpark

The original plans for what will now be Citi Field were created as part of New York City's 2012 Summer Olympics bid. After plans for a West Side Stadium fell through, New York looked for an alternate stadium to host the opening and closing ceremonies. The Olympic stadium project was estimated to cost $2.2 billion with $180 million provided by New York City and New York State. If New York had won the bid, the stadium would have been expanded to host the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as other sporting events.

Design and construction

The new stadium is planned to have a capacity of 45,000 (42,500 seats, ~2,500 standing room). The exterior facade and entranceway rotunda will be reminiscent of Ebbets Field (which was long sought by Mets owner Fred Wilpon, a Brooklyn native). Citi Field will have an interior design that evokes design features of recent ballparks, most notably Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. The projected cost of the new stadium and other infrastructure improvements is $610 million, with the Mets picking up $420 million of that amount. The agreement includes a 40-year lease that will keep the Mets in New York until 2049. The stadium will be accessible via the Long Island Rail Road (Shea Stadium station) and the New York City Subway 7 train (Willets Point-Shea Stadium station), as with the current facility.

On March 18 2006, the New York Mets unveiled the official model for the new stadium. By July 2006, initial construction of the new park was underway in the parking lot beyond left-field, with a projected finish ahead of Opening Day 2009 in late March. By August 2008, the New York Mets and Daktronics will be installing of integrated scoring and video boards throughout the stadium. As of April 13, all of the structure for the Jackie Robinson Rotunda is now in place with the arched windows receiving their paneling and glass; the upper deck of the ballpark is now in the process of having its seats installed. According to recent reports, the construction is far ahead of schedule, but won't open until 2009. As of September 2008, most of the Citi Field signage has been installed. Shea Stadium was the only ballpark in the Major Leagues to feature orange foul poles instead of the standard yellow, a unique characteristic that will make its way into Citi Field.

Home of the Mets

This stadium will be the third stadium that the Mets call home during their nearly 50-year history. The Mets played the 1962 and 1963 seasons at the Polo Grounds, which had also been the home of the New York Yankees and New York Giants. In 1964, they moved to Shea Stadium, which they shared with the New York Jets until 1983.

Naming rights

On November 13 2006, it was officially announced that the stadium would be called Citi Field, named for Citigroup Inc. Citigroup will be paying $20 million a year for the naming rights to the park over the next 20 years. This made Citi Field the second major league sports venue in the area named for a corporate sponsor (after Izod Center in New Jersey, but preceding Prudential Center in Newark and Barclays Center planned for the Atlantic Yards proposal in Brooklyn), officially becoming the first in New York City itself, aside from two minor league ballparks (KeySpan Park, Richmond County Bank Ballpark) and Citibank Park home to Long Island Ducks of Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, includes an option on both sides to extend the contract to 40 years, and is the most expensive sports-stadium naming rights agreement ever, subsequently equaled by Barclays' $400 million deal with the Nets for their planned arena in Brooklyn.

At the groundbreaking for Citi Field, it was announced that the main entrance, modeled on the one in Brooklyn's old Ebbets Field, will be called the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, possibly due to campaigns to forego naming rights and name the ballpark after Robinson. The Mets are spending more than $600 million for the new stadium, which New York City and New York state are also supporting with a total of $165 million for such costs as infrastructure and site preparation. On February 24, 2008, the Mets and Citigroup unveiled the new Citi Field logo.

Delta Sky360 Club

Delta Air Lines signed a multiyear deal on September 15, 2008, to sponsor an exclusive section in Citi Field. The new Delta Sky360 Club will be a 22,500-square-foot area directly behind home plate. Delta will hold exclusive naming rights to the stadium’s "Sterling Club" level in addition to the providing significant branding presence throughout the park and on the Mets’ official television station, SportsNet New York (SNY).

Planned stadium facts

	Shea Stadium	Citi Field
Opening Day	1964	2009
Capacity	57,333	45,000 (approx.)
Seat width	19" to 20", 19" average	19" to 24", 21" average
Legroom	32"	33" to 39"
Average concourse width	.	.
Wheelchair seating	174	830
Luxury suites	45	54
Restaurants (total capacity)	2 (528)	4 (3,334)
Team store	.	.
No. of toilets	568	646
Public elevators(OTIS Gen2 MRL TRACTION)	4	11
Field dimensions (feet)	Left field - 338 Left center - 371 Center - 410 Right center - 371 Right field - 338	Left field - 335 Left center - 379 Center - 408 Right center - 383 Right field - 330