WCCO - February 18, 2008

How Suite It Is: Twins Unveil New Ballpark Suites

Reporting
Frank Vascellaro

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) "• The Minnesota Twins is giving the public a better idea of what the new 40,000 ballpark will look like as officials unveiled the suites, decorated with a bit of Minnesota flare.

"There's about 55 of them ... they're mostly all sold, I think there's nine remaining," said Jerry Bell, President of Twins Sports Inc.

A medium-sized suite will have Scandinavian wood throughout, with several bars and a plasma television, and plenty of room to roam. And while the style might be sensational these seats aren't cheap -- from $200,000 down to $100,000, depending on the location.

For the average Joe, club seating might be the answer. There are about 18,500 infield seats and from what we're told there's not a bad seat in the house.

"There are 3,000 (club) seats like that and then just the general seating in the stadium where its designed to provide a lot of shelter," said Bell.

As for the stadium in general, crews continue to jackhammer.

So far they have started to build a plaza over the freeway, right field is taking shape and the main concourse in right field has been poured.

Crews have only missed a couple of work days due to extreme cold weather. They've got a special way of working with concrete in the cold. First they build a tent where they're going to pour concrete, and then they have to do this:

"Underneath that they will enclose it with plastic. Inside the plastic, they put butane heaters, they make it 90 degrees in there so the bottom is very warm, then they pour the cement on top of that. Then they cover the concrete with a blanket," described Bell.