Business View Magazine | February 2018

146 147 of the above, plus concerts, charitable walks, and surprisingly,weddings.“As the word has spread to wedding planners and photographers, they’ve found out that it’s a beautiful setting,”Olerud says,“especially in the fall when the leaves have changed in themoun- tains. Our club level holds about 300 people,so it has the advantage of the stunning viewcoupledwith the luxuryof our suite level.It reallyhas everything to make an ideal wedding or reception.” Luxury was not always an amenity at PNC Field. “We had a typical 1980’s cookie-cutter stadium,” Olerud recounts.“Things started to change in the ‘90’s when multi-purpose facilities and fan ameni- ties became a necessity. In 2010,we put together a plan to give the stadium a facelift.The plan was, basically, to knock it down and reassemble it.”The $43.3 million renovation project began on April 27, 2012 with the removal of upper deck seats and the stadium’s dark, dingy concourses.Outside of the field and the lower seating bowl, very little actually remains from the old park. “We went on the road for the entire 2012 season and reopened PNC Field in 2013,”Olerud continues, “where we’ve been ever since.Along the way,we added every amenity that all of the new-age,minor league stadiums currently have. It’s been completely modernized to become a premier venue in north- eastern Pennsylvania. It was the 2013 Baseball Digest’s American Stadium of the Year.We hosted the 2017Triple-ANational Championship Game, which is the pinnacle of events at this level. It was nationally televised on NBC Sports.” Seating capacity at PNC Field is approximately 10,000.Olerud explains,“There are7,200 fixed seats PNC FIELD in the bowl level, 270 club seats, 18 luxury suites that hold up to 16 people each, two party decks–one accommodates 60 and one that maxes out at about 80, so we have roughly 750 in the second level. We also have the Budweiser Railhouse in right field that seats roughly 200.We have the Kost Pavilion in left field that sits 500, and we have a grass berm in right-center that holds up to about 2,000. In 2018,we will be building an additional hospitality area in left-center field,which will give us the capacity for another 275 people.” In addition to increased capacity (and increased luxury),Olerud states that the stadium has also kept pace with the rapid changes in technology.“There was a lot of infrastructure built-in during the renova- tion that allows us to adapt to the times,” he explains.“The ability to run conduit and fiber, in addition to the WiFi capabilities that we have here, are second-to-none. We have a 150 by eight foot digital wall in right field, a massive video board in left-center, ribbon video boards above the first and third base balconies, and digital boards in the front of the ballpark.All of those things help make PNC Field as tech savvy as anyMajor League ballpark.” Keeping pace with sustainable prac- tices is also on Olerud’s agenda: “When the ballpark was built, there weren’t a great deal of green initiatives put in place. Now, our operations team is constantly in research of how things can be better.We recycle all of our plastics and paper, plus we are doing fewer paper programs and more informative emails.We are driving