With two months to go before completion, A’s ownership and the City of Mesa did a tour of Fitch Park and Hohokam Stadium today, emphasizing all the improvements A’s players and fans will get to enjoy in a few months. I visited back in the summer. I should have a chance to check it out again in the coming weeks. Until then, take a look at tweets by local media showing the project’s progress. The new clubhouse isn’t quite finished yet, but the seats and scoreboard appear to be complete.
Think about that for a moment. Over the span of six months, the A’s are installing new scoreboards at Hohokam, the Earthquakes Stadium, and the Coliseum. That’s a lot of blinking lights!
As much as I loved the old school, laid back intimacy of Phoenix Muni, I’m looking forward to attending games at Hohokam, which is a fairly short bike ride from my brother’s house in Mesa. The spring pilgrimage looks to become an annual rite for me.
newballpark.org 
Great looking park!
I’m surprised the Gints didn’t try to claim the territorial rights to Mesa too.
That moment when you realize the A’s Spring Training stadium’s scoreboard is much nicer than the Coliseum’s. LOL.
That was my first reaction to seeing the upgrades too. That and HoHoKam now has more A’s specific things to it like coloring and signage than the Coliseum. It’s a true A’s home, even if only for February and March. Pity the boys then have to spend the rest of the year in the Coliseum.
coliseum getting two new video screens for 2015. if anything the club house at hohokam could be nicer than the coliseum’s and you don’t have to worry about sewage.
can’t wait until the a’s themselves get a new park somewhere in the bay area, oakland or sj, really don’t care at this point. the org, franchise. and fans deserve it and when that day comes it’ll mean even more to us a’s fans than the 90% of other teams who have gotten ballparks over the past 2.5 decades due to what we a’s fans have gone thru during this whole process.
@letsgoa’s: But the silver lining is that the A’s get to learn from the design flaws and successes of every other major league team’s stadium build. That’s an advantage to going last. Hopefully they’ll build a two-deck jewel with great sight lines when it finally happens.
@ Jacob Jackson
I with you, on the two-deck jewel with great sight lines, but it have been one hell of a difficult silver lining to endure.
What’s insane to me about the “two deck” thing… The blueprint/proof that this is the way to go has been sitting in Chicago for more than 100 years.
Yes and no. Wrigley may be two decks, but it also lacks a lot of the touches that are required of modern parks. And in doing so two deck style with those required modern touches you end up with something very different like PNC Park. Yes PNC is a gorgeous park, but it does have one major drawback because of the two deck design, the upper deck is further from the field than it would be in a three deck design, and the first deck is very large. And the suites end up adding a small middle deck too, somewhat defeating the idea that it is a 2 deck park.
Given the alternatives I prefer a 3 deck design with less deep decks closer to the field, ala Petco Park or Target Field. Gives the stadium more seats in a smaller footprint closer to the field, while maximizing the space for circulation via things like concourses.
Of course I wasn’t saying “build it just like Wrigley.” You prefer what you want, I’ll take Wrigley over Petco any day. And I love Petco, but not for the seating bowl design.
Man, I really hope the A’s go for the two-deck style, when they do build. I get the impression that Wolff may be leaning that way. (Not that I would actually know)
All previous Cisco Field concepts have been two-deck, or rather two-concourse. I don’t expect that to change, simply because it would increase the cost severely.
Amazing that Hohokam can be completely redone in a matter of months – but the stadium situation in the Bay Area can’t be resolved for years.
Well that’ll happen when: a) the project is much smaller, simpler, and cheaper and b) when the city involved will play ball, so to speak
Ding ding ding. Hohokam’s upgrades were relatively minor with much of them being removal of seats, cosmetic changes, internal renovations, etc… And they were funded in large part by the public in Mesa. When the cities dump a fair chunk of money into the projects they tend to happen quicker (at least outside California).