Paul Revere's communication system was nothing compared to what is being planned for Salt Lake City's new baseball stadium.
Borrowing on the one-if-by-land and two-if-by-sea concept, the city and the architects designing the 12,000-seat facility are considering communicating with fans via lights in four towers surrounding the stadium. Baseball fans driving by will know by the color of the light whether the local team won or lost.Craig Elliott, the stadium's designer from the Kansas City, Mo., firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kas-sa-baum, said the concept hasn't been well-defined yet. But he and others associated with the stadium are looking to establish unique baseball traditions.
"The more specific the tradition, the more successful the stadium," Elliott said Friday.
Each of the towers will be fitted with fiber-optic lights capable of changing to four colors. The trick is deciding which four things the colors can represent.
But other decisions associated with the $18 million facility - soon to be home to a triple-A baseball team, the highest level next to the major leagues - have been made.
Take the colors and materials, for instance.
In recent weeks, city officials and the team of designers and construction coordinators have decided the stadium's partial roof and exposed steel structure will be dark green. The seats will be a slightly lighter shade of green.
Green, Elliott said, is a sort of baseball tradition.
"You can find almost any shade of color in stadiums across the country," he said. "But in the romantic sense of a baseball stadium, people think of this color."
Along the street outside, the stadium will be built of gray stone on the first level, changing to red brick on the level above.
The Salt Lake City Arts Council is trying to choose an artist whose drawings will be etched in the sides of the towers. Nancy Boskoff, the council's director, said 11 local artists have submitted designs, ranging from non-baseball artistic themes to one that uses words from baseball's history.
Boskoff said the idea of including art as part of the structure is important.
"They could have said let's just drop a sculpture into the plaza," she said. "But the architects have been great to work with. They wanted something that would hearken back to the old days."
Elliott said the colors and the stadium's design reflect themes that are popular throughout the city. He has assembled photos of what he considers successful local buildings, including the LDS temple, Salt Lake City Hall (formerly the City-County Building), the Greek Orthodox Church, both the Rio Grande and Union Pacific train depots, the Delta Center, the Hilton Hotel and the Triad Center.
These are buildings that fit into the community well and are easily recognized, he said. Most of them are built with masonry and have balconies. The stadium's second level of seats will extend about four rows over the first level, like a balcony.
Construction officials said construction of the stadium is on schedule. Crews hope to lay sod for the field by October, so the grass will take root before the season. The stadium's main structure already is rising, but will go 40 feet higher before the facility is complete.