BLUE JAYS STADIUM

The Skydome ballpark is home to the Toronto Blue Jays and it was opened on the 1st of June, 1989.The Skydome seats 51,516. Opening ceremonies at SkyDome took place on June 3, 1989. Over 60,000 people watched the dome open for the first time. The first baseball game at SkyDome was on June 5, 1989, when 51,000 fans filled the stadium. Skydome was one of the first stadiums in the world to have a fully retractable motorized roof and is the world's most advanced and luxurious ballpark. The stadium employs leading edge technology in both design and function. From the artificial turf to the 161 private Skyboxes, the finest attention to detail was given. The Skydome is a huge ballpark in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated next to the CN Tower near the shores of Lake Ontario. It is the stadium where the Toronto Blue Jays play baseball and the Toronto Argonauts play Canadian football. It is also the home of many special events that require very large venues, including what is believed (in 2003) to be the world's largest book reading, by Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, on 24th October 2000. The Skydome can seat 53,506 people at a football game and has a hotel with 348 distinctively decorated rooms, 70 of which overlook the playing field. At conception, SkyDome took an innovative approach to financing, construction and design. Each private company contributed 5 million dollars in exchange for preferred supplier status and a Skybox. The final construction cost of SkyDome exceeded 500 million dollars which was paid for by the Canadian federal government, Ontario provincial government, and a large consortium of corporations. In April of 1999, SkyDome was purchased by Sportsco International, L.P. Architects Rod Robbie and Michael Allan designed SkyDome and have patented its retractable roof system. The construction was done by Ellis-Don Construction of Toronto. Preparation of the site began in April 1986, with groundbreaking taking place in October of that same year. The last exterior concrete was poured in November of 1988 and the first test of the moveable roof panels took place in January 1989. More than 10,000 person-years of employment were created by the construction of SkyDome. In the early 1990s the consortium of companies that had built the stadium had amassed a huge debt and a massive, and controversial, government bail-out was given them. However, by 2004, Rogers Communications, parent company of the Blue Jays, agreed to acquire SkyDome from Sportco International, LP for about $25 million Cdn (about US$21.24 million). SkyDome was the first major team sports arena in North America to sport a fully retractable roof. It is also well known for its enormous Jumbo Tron scoreboard, at 10 by 35 meters the largest scoreboard in the world. It is the tallest and most massive stadium used by any Major League Baseball team. Naming the stadium was one part in which fans got to participate. Over 12,879 fans submitted a wide variety of suggestions to name the stadium (Alfresco Stadium, Railway Place, Zipper Dome). The name chosen for the stadium was announced on May 11, 1987. The stadium was named SkyDome.