WSJ on : apt. and condo buildings overlooking MLB stadiums ...................................................
WSJ
Oct. 24, 2024
The Latest In-Demand View for Homeowners? A Baseball Stadium
Ballpark condos let you root, root, root for the home team from your living room, balcony or private roof deck
In Minneapolis, the new North Loop Green 360 residential building has an amenity space that overlooks Target Field, home to the Minnesota Twins. Apartments also overlook the field.
By Jessica Flint
When the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers play in the 2024 World Series, spectators won’t be able to easily watch the action on the field at Yankee Stadium or Dodger Stadium live in person from the comfort of their own homes. But for a growing number of baseball fans such as Randy and Sylvia Moyers, in San Diego, home field advantage has taken a whole new meaning.
That is because the Moyerses, both 67, live in an 1,800-square-foot, three bedroom downtown San Diego townhouse that has a 700-square-foot outdoor space that overlooks the Padres’ stadium, Petco Park. They bought their unit for $998,500 in 2007. “I walk out on my private roof deck and watch the action and listen to the people screaming in the stadium,” Randy says.
Clockwise, San Diego’s the Legend overlooks Petco Park; an amenity space at the Legend; Randy and Sylvia Moyerses’ unit.Luke Anderson
During this year’s National League Division Series, in which the Padres eventually lost to the Dodgers, Randy could feel the energy of the Padres fans waving rally towels in the ballpark while he watched from home. “It’s like being there,” he says of his perch.
The couple’s townhouse is in the Legend, a 23-story building with 170 condo units and eight townhomes located in the outer perimeter of left field within the actual confines of Petco Park. Roughly 35% of units have views in the stadium’s direction. The seventh floor shared amenity space, with a 3,200-square-foot deck, has an unobstructed field view. The building was completed in 2007; Petco Park opened in 2004.
Randy Moyers at home with his son, Mason Moyers.
“It’s a great lifestyle,” says Randy of having a roughly 42,000-person capacity stadium as his neighbor.
Across the U.S., a small number of people like the Moyerses live in residences where watching a professional baseball game live from inside their living spaces or outdoor balconies and roof decks is a real possibility. Only about a half-dozen or so of the country’s 29 active MLB stadiums currently have at least one residential building that prominently overlooks the field.
Some residences have turf views somewhat by happenstance. In Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, about a dozen roof decks on West Waveland and North Sheffield Avenues -- some of which predate the 1900s -- overlook the outfield of Wrigley Field, where the Cubs have played since 1916. In downtown Pittsburgh, a 1960s building was converted into the Venue residential complex, which has updated rental apartments, some of which look across the Allegheny River into PNC Park, home of the Pirates since 2001.
Chicago Cubs fans sit on rooftops overlooking Wrigley Field in July 2020, during the pandemic.
Overlooking Wrigley Field, buildings with rooftops are visible beyond the outfield stands.
Lately, however, new residential buildings have been specifically constructed to take full advantage of field views. In the case of St. Louis’s One Cardinal Way -- a 29-story, 297-unit rental tower that overlooks Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals have played since 2006 -- there is even programming that makes tenants feel like part of the clubhouse: Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III has sat down with residents to chat about running a ball club.
Rents at One Cardinal Way range from about $1,500 per month to more than $6,000 per month. “I can literally watch the game from my living room, my balcony or on the best days, the pool,” says resident Drew Clary, 33, who works in commercial real estate. The building has a 30,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor amenity level with an infinity pool that overlooks the field.
Clockwise, One Cardinal Way’s infinity pool and outdoor seating area; an apartment has a Busch Stadium field view; a gym in the building.
The tower, which opened in 2020 and sits behind Busch Stadium’s center field, is at the epicenter of a multi-city-block enclave around the ballpark called Ballpark Village, which has restaurants, bars, music venues, a health club, a hotel and shops. Thirteen of the 19 unit types face the field and have unobstructed sightlines to home plate -- and are within earshot of the crack of the bat. It runs 98% leased on average. Units with field views are almost always 100% occupied.
In Minneapolis, North Loop Green 360 is a 34-story residential building with 450 units, roughly 27% of which have front-facing views of Target Field, home to the Twins since 2010. It started leasing in January and rents start around $1,750 per month and go up to about $12,000 per month.
A North Loop Green 360 apartment overlooking Target Field.
The exterior of the North Loop Green 360 tower within a new mixed-use development.
Since the 1990s, mixed-use districts have been cropping up around U.S. sports stadiums of all kinds, turning what had traditionally been seas of parking-lot asphalt into large urban development projects. More are in the works. In Queens, N.Y., around Citi Field, Mets owner Steve Cohen and Hard Rock International have proposed an $8 billion Metropolitan Park project that would include a casino, hotel, food-and-beverage venues and 25 acres of parkland.
Washington, D.C., has a version of this on steroids. Just south of the U.S. Capitol, the Capitol Riverfront, a roughly square-mile district on the Anacostia River, is home to the Navy Yard neighborhood and Nationals Park, where the Nationals have played since 2008. Since the pandemic, the Navy Yard has become a thriving neighborhood with about 22,000 residents and a daytime population of 32,000. There also happen to be about a half-dozen residential buildings with ballpark field views.
The Kelvin, for example, has 312 rental apartments with an average rent of $2,700 per month. It opened in 2020 and has views of the field from its rooftop amenity space and some apartments on the N Street SE side.
In Washington, D.C., the Kelvin’s rooftop overlooks National Park, home to the Nationals.
The Kelvin, diagonally opposite from a Nationals Park entry point, is one of many residential buildings in the Navy Yard.
Back in San Diego, the Moyerses have had the option of attending roughly 1,420 San Diego Padres games without ever needing a ticket. They reserved their unit in the Legend 2005, before the building was even built. He owned a company in San Diego and viewed his townhouse as a place to enjoy downtown living.
Overlooking Petco Park, the Legend sits apart from other downtown San Diego buildings.
The median listing home price in the East Village, where the Legend is located, is currently $602,425, according to Realtor.com. ( News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, also operates Realtor.com.) There are four units for sale in the Legend, including Moyerses’ unit, which is listed for $1.5499 million. Now that they are retired, they want to switch things up.
“Most of the time, I have enjoyed the vibe and ambience,” Randy says. “If you don’t want to be involved in the action, you shut your windows.” He says outside noise is greatly reduced by cement and brick construction with dual pane windows. He has motorized blackout shades on all of the windows because that is just his nature, not because the stadium is too bright at night. “If I do want to go to sleep earlier than the town goes to sleep, I just pull the shades down,” he says.
Write to Jessica Flint at Jessica.Flint@wsj.com
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