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By Danine Alati
Photography by David Sundberg/Esto
Few sporting organizations—or companies overall, for that matter—have the sense of pride and heritage of the New York Yankees. As the winningest and most storied team in professional sports and one that's employed a host of all-stars—from Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle and Roger Marist to Don Mattingly, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Riviera—the Yankees organization faced a challenge when last year it shuttered its 85-year-old stadium, hailed as the Cathedral of Baseball: What is the best way to properly honor the team's past while moving ahead into the next era? The answer: a new, state-of-the-art stadium across the street that is a replica of the original Yankee Stadium, built in 1923. Lonn Trost, chief operating officer of the New York Yankees, has said: "This new stadium has been built with our fans in mind. We've looked at every stadium all over the country. We've analyzed the different ways of building the stadium—a retro stadium. The only way of building the stadium for the fans, for New York City, and for the country is to replicate [the classic] Yankee Stadium. And we have."
Considering the fans' experience, with the goal of paying homage to the past while embracing the future, the Yankees organization and developer Tishman Speyer commissioned Toronto-based II BY IV Design Associates to create premium hospitality spaces at the new stadium that would be aligned with a five-star experience. "The Yankees wanted a stadium forecasting the future of where stadiums would go," says Dan Menchions, a partner at II BY IV. "They wanted New York-style spaces that would attract an outside audience and draw in those who might not normally visit a ballpark." Tishman Speyer established a program with the Yankees and approached II BY IV with the programmatic needs but without a plan of how the spaces would look, other than incorporating the Yankee logo and signature Yankee blue. From those directives, the II BY IV team designed the Legends Suite Club, Legends Suite Dugout Lounges, NYY Steak, Hard Rock Café, and a conference center suited for the best team in professional sports (as per its record-setting 26 World Series Championships).
The new stadium, which officially opened in April 2009 and accommodates 53,000 fans, offers a range of seating options from the Bleachers and Grandstand to Terrace down to Main Level and Field Level, all with their own concessions. But the best seats in the house are the 1,800 Legend Suite seats in an exclusive section behind home plate that extends past each dugout. II BY IV created the corresponding Legends Suite Club behind home plate to service these ticket holders. The designers made a dramatic statement upon entry into this two-level, private, 700-seat dining club with a "blue cube vestibule," crafted of custom-made glass panels (MDF lacquered panels between safety glass) featuring a pattern of the interlocking "NY" Yankee insignia and tinted Yankee blue. This blue cube appears to be floating at the entrance and leads down to the lower level.
Menchions describes the overall design as "classic interiors," which is achieved with porcelain floor tile that looks like wood, leather upholstery, custom carpet tiles, stainless-steel hardware, and split-face, Carrera marble-clad structural columns. The signature Yankee blue color—which must never deviate from the exact hue, according to Menchions—pops up again in the acid-etched mirror on the backbar area. "The interiors offer plenty of visual texture," Menchions says. "We really interpreted the logo in sophisticated ways, where if you get it, you get it, but if you don't see it, it's OK because it's still offering nice texture." For example, the logo is embossed in five variations of panels of burled walnut veneer and high-gloss lacquer on perimeter walls. White lacquer screens that break up the lower level feature the NY insignia jet-cut into them, slightly obscuring the logo, in an example of either you see it or you don't.
The top level of the Legends Suite Club offers full visibility out to the stadium, while the lower lever has no views but features numerous flat-screen televisions streaming the game and provides access out to the field and Legend Suite seats. Behind these seats along the first and third baselines is where the Legends Suite Dugout Lounges are. "These lounges are actually under the stadium seats," Menchions explains. "We utilized spaces that usually would never be used or seen." And the location actually informed the design, with exposed galvanized steel decking creating the sloped ceiling. The Dugout Lounges are more moody, intimate spaces, with subtle uplighting. The bar features a custom, poured resin top and a front made of acrylic panels sporting Yankee pinstripes. The most literal and striking reference to Yankee heritage in all the II BY IV-designed areas is here, in the installation of larger-than-life, backlit photographs of Yankee legends. A famous shot of Lou Gehrig circa 1937 greets visitors in the entry corridor, while another wall behind a drink rail is covered with an image of five Yankees—Red Ruffing, Joe Gordon, Bill Dickey, Charlie Keller, and Joe DiMaggio—in the dugout at the 1941 All-Star Game.
While not as exclusive as the private Legends Suite Club and Dugout Lounges, NYY Steak offers fine dining in a refined setting that is available to the general public. Overlooking the stadium's Great Hall, NYY Steak exudes a warm aesthetic with two-toned American black oak floors and a bar of antique brown granite. Yankee blue leather upholstered club chairs surround tables that can be easily reconfigured. Other than the open kitchen, the focal point of the steak house is a series of walls paneled in backlit, acid-etched bronze mirrors with autographs of those who have impacted the history of the Yankees, including team owner George Steinbrenner. A lobby knife display houses custom-engraved knives of regulars—if a noted celebrity's knife is missing, he or she is dining there that night. Both NYY Steak and the Hard Rock Café, located just below the steak house on the main level, are open to the public year-round.
The banquet and conference center is accessible via NYY Steak and maintains the same upscale aesthetic as the rest of the II BY IV-designed interiors. Yankee blue veneered doors and terrazzo flooring with a logo medallion and custom-tufted logoed carpet reference the team, while providing corporate guests state-of-the-art technology to support their business needs. The conference center also can be booked year-round for private parties or during the season for a day of business at the ball game.
"The new stadium is going to be an iconic venue—not only for baseball," Trost has said. "Everything that anyone ever wants to do and have, Yankee Stadium as a venue will be available." To that end, the new stadium offers revenue-generating spaces—including these II BY IV-designed premium hospitality spaces—that the old stadium did not. And while the die-hard fan may have shed a tear at her last visit to the House that Ruth Built last September, the new stadium is everything the old stadium was—and more.
who
Project: Yankee Stadium Premium Hospitality Spaces (Legends Suite Lounges, Dugout Lounge, NYY Steak Restaurant, Hard Rock Café). Client: New York Yankees / Tishman Speyer. Architect: Populous. Interior designer:II BY IV Design Associates Inc. Mechanical/electrical engineer, lighting designer: ME Engineers. General contractor: Turner Construction. Food service consultant: Cini-Little. Furniture dealer: Evenson Best. Photographer: David Sundberg/Esto.
what
Legends Suite Lounge—Total floor area: 20,000 sq. ft. No. of floors: 2. Average floor size: 10,000 sq. ft. Total capacity by tables or guests: 700 seated. Dugout Lounge—Solid-core panels: Fossil Faux Studios (Dugout Lounge). Cocktail tables, occasional furniture, architectural woodworking: Miller Blaker (Dugout Lounge). NYY Steak Restaurant— Wallcoverings: Metro Wallcovering. Paint: ICI Paints. Ceiling: Rimi Woodcraft Corp. Dining chairs, lounge/cocktail seating, upholstery: ISA International. Architectural woodworking: Rimi Woodcraft Corp.
where
Location: Bronx, New York. Legends Suite Lounge—Total floor area: 20,000 sq. ft.; No. of floors: 2. Average floor size: 10,000 sq. ft. Total capacity by tables or guests: 700 seated.
NYY Steak Restaurant—Total floor area: 4,600 sq. ft. No. of floors: 1. Total capacity by tables or guests: 119 seated.
—Nielsen Business Media
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Pinstripe Pride
Aug 14, 2009Photography by David Sundberg/Esto
Few sporting organizations—or companies overall, for that matter—have the sense of pride and heritage of the New York Yankees. As the winningest and most storied team in professional sports and one that's employed a host of all-stars—from Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle and Roger Marist to Don Mattingly, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Riviera—the Yankees organization faced a challenge when last year it shuttered its 85-year-old stadium, hailed as the Cathedral of Baseball: What is the best way to properly honor the team's past while moving ahead into the next era? The answer: a new, state-of-the-art stadium across the street that is a replica of the original Yankee Stadium, built in 1923. Lonn Trost, chief operating officer of the New York Yankees, has said: "This new stadium has been built with our fans in mind. We've looked at every stadium all over the country. We've analyzed the different ways of building the stadium—a retro stadium. The only way of building the stadium for the fans, for New York City, and for the country is to replicate [the classic] Yankee Stadium. And we have."
The new stadium, which officially opened in April 2009 and accommodates 53,000 fans, offers a range of seating options from the Bleachers and Grandstand to Terrace down to Main Level and Field Level, all with their own concessions. But the best seats in the house are the 1,800 Legend Suite seats in an exclusive section behind home plate that extends past each dugout. II BY IV created the corresponding Legends Suite Club behind home plate to service these ticket holders. The designers made a dramatic statement upon entry into this two-level, private, 700-seat dining club with a "blue cube vestibule," crafted of custom-made glass panels (MDF lacquered panels between safety glass) featuring a pattern of the interlocking "NY" Yankee insignia and tinted Yankee blue. This blue cube appears to be floating at the entrance and leads down to the lower level.
The top level of the Legends Suite Club offers full visibility out to the stadium, while the lower lever has no views but features numerous flat-screen televisions streaming the game and provides access out to the field and Legend Suite seats. Behind these seats along the first and third baselines is where the Legends Suite Dugout Lounges are. "These lounges are actually under the stadium seats," Menchions explains. "We utilized spaces that usually would never be used or seen." And the location actually informed the design, with exposed galvanized steel decking creating the sloped ceiling. The Dugout Lounges are more moody, intimate spaces, with subtle uplighting. The bar features a custom, poured resin top and a front made of acrylic panels sporting Yankee pinstripes. The most literal and striking reference to Yankee heritage in all the II BY IV-designed areas is here, in the installation of larger-than-life, backlit photographs of Yankee legends. A famous shot of Lou Gehrig circa 1937 greets visitors in the entry corridor, while another wall behind a drink rail is covered with an image of five Yankees—Red Ruffing, Joe Gordon, Bill Dickey, Charlie Keller, and Joe DiMaggio—in the dugout at the 1941 All-Star Game.
While not as exclusive as the private Legends Suite Club and Dugout Lounges, NYY Steak offers fine dining in a refined setting that is available to the general public. Overlooking the stadium's Great Hall, NYY Steak exudes a warm aesthetic with two-toned American black oak floors and a bar of antique brown granite. Yankee blue leather upholstered club chairs surround tables that can be easily reconfigured. Other than the open kitchen, the focal point of the steak house is a series of walls paneled in backlit, acid-etched bronze mirrors with autographs of those who have impacted the history of the Yankees, including team owner George Steinbrenner. A lobby knife display houses custom-engraved knives of regulars—if a noted celebrity's knife is missing, he or she is dining there that night. Both NYY Steak and the Hard Rock Café, located just below the steak house on the main level, are open to the public year-round.
The banquet and conference center is accessible via NYY Steak and maintains the same upscale aesthetic as the rest of the II BY IV-designed interiors. Yankee blue veneered doors and terrazzo flooring with a logo medallion and custom-tufted logoed carpet reference the team, while providing corporate guests state-of-the-art technology to support their business needs. The conference center also can be booked year-round for private parties or during the season for a day of business at the ball game.
"The new stadium is going to be an iconic venue—not only for baseball," Trost has said. "Everything that anyone ever wants to do and have, Yankee Stadium as a venue will be available." To that end, the new stadium offers revenue-generating spaces—including these II BY IV-designed premium hospitality spaces—that the old stadium did not. And while the die-hard fan may have shed a tear at her last visit to the House that Ruth Built last September, the new stadium is everything the old stadium was—and more.
who
Project: Yankee Stadium Premium Hospitality Spaces (Legends Suite Lounges, Dugout Lounge, NYY Steak Restaurant, Hard Rock Café). Client: New York Yankees / Tishman Speyer. Architect: Populous. Interior designer:II BY IV Design Associates Inc. Mechanical/electrical engineer, lighting designer: ME Engineers. General contractor: Turner Construction. Food service consultant: Cini-Little. Furniture dealer: Evenson Best. Photographer: David Sundberg/Esto.
what
Legends Suite Lounge—Total floor area: 20,000 sq. ft. No. of floors: 2. Average floor size: 10,000 sq. ft. Total capacity by tables or guests: 700 seated. Dugout Lounge—Solid-core panels: Fossil Faux Studios (Dugout Lounge). Cocktail tables, occasional furniture, architectural woodworking: Miller Blaker (Dugout Lounge). NYY Steak Restaurant— Wallcoverings: Metro Wallcovering. Paint: ICI Paints. Ceiling: Rimi Woodcraft Corp. Dining chairs, lounge/cocktail seating, upholstery: ISA International. Architectural woodworking: Rimi Woodcraft Corp.
where
Location: Bronx, New York. Legends Suite Lounge—Total floor area: 20,000 sq. ft.; No. of floors: 2. Average floor size: 10,000 sq. ft. Total capacity by tables or guests: 700 seated.
NYY Steak Restaurant—Total floor area: 4,600 sq. ft. No. of floors: 1. Total capacity by tables or guests: 119 seated.
—Nielsen Business Media
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