Slideshow: First look inside (and above) the new CarMax Park

As the Richmond Flying Squirrels start the second half of what’s set to be their final season at The Diamond, construction of the team’s new home next door is more than midway through its roughly 18-month schedule and on track for completion early next year.

Team management and crews with Gilbane Building Co. provided a tour Wednesday morning of the new CarMax Park, showing the progress so far on the 10,000-seat capacity stadium, which has completed primary steelwork and continues to take shape beside the 40-year-old Diamond it’s set to replace.

The seating bowl at field level is nearly set to be filled with 5,500 lower-level seats, nearly twice the number of seats that make up The Diamond’s lower bowl.

Upper-level suites above the concourse are being framed, and the park’s main entrance structure is now vertical, as is framing for the scoreboard that Flying Squirrels Chief Operating Officer Ben Rothrock said will be among the largest in Minor League Baseball and the largest in Virginia.

“The progress has been great,” Rothrock said during the tour, which was scheduled to coincide with the opening of season membership sales for the Squirrels’ inaugural season at CarMax Park.

Flying Squirrels COO Ben Rothrock led Wednesday’s media tour. (Jonathan Spiers photo/Richmond BizSense)

Rothrock also showed samples of the park’s new seats, which will be wider than The Diamond’s with more room between rows. Three sections immediately behind home plate will feature cushioned seats, and the ballpark’s concourse will also be wider than The Diamond’s, providing more room for concessions and other amenities.

Projected to cost at least $117 million, CarMax Park is designed to provide a 360-degree experience for attendees, with amenities around the entire field. Those are to include an outfield play area for children and families, terraced lawn seating, beer garden, party deck, barbecue picnic area, and the east-side main entrance opening out to a park for the larger Diamond District development.

Patrick Albrecht, the project manager for Gilbane, said CarMax Park remains on schedule, even despite the recent heat wave that has hit the city. He said construction is targeted for substantial completion by the end of February, in time for the start of next year’s season.

Of the heat that has hit workers hardest this week, Albrecht said, “I don’t expect it to impact progress, but we’re certainly taking precautions.”

CarMax Park is taking shape beside The Diamond and Sports Backers Stadium, which will both be razed. Site work for VCU’s Athletic Village complex is visible at upper right. (All aerial photos by Skyshots Photography)

Leading the ballpark’s development are the Squirrels and Machete Group, a Houston-based firm that’s been advising the ballclub on the project. Gilbane is working with Prestige Construction Group on the build, and LaBella Associates and KEi Architects led the design.

The opening will bring the ballclub in compliance with facility standards that Major League Baseball, which oversees minor league venues such as The Diamond, has required of all pro baseball venues.

The Diamond, which is halfway through its 40th and final season and does not meet MLB’s standards, will eventually be demolished to make way for future phases of the Diamond District, the 67-acre mixed-use development that CarMax Park will anchor. The first phase of the larger project broke ground in April.

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