Revenue Building

Visit Dodger Stadium these days and you might be startled to find a bulldozer digging holes in the dirt behind home plate.

Nearby, while a construction crew in hard hats labors noisily, a forklift makes a racket of its own as it moves a pile of steel rods. The seats behind home plate on the lower level have been put into storage, leaving an area covered by debris. The club level is a jumble of exposed metal and wood. The outfield is brown, with tire tracks snaking through the untended grass. Two portable outhouses sit outside the left-field foul line, just beyond the Dodger dugout.

Major league baseball’s fifth-oldest stadium--only Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago, County Stadium in Milwaukee and Yankee Stadium in New York predate Dodger Stadium, which opened in 1962--is undergoing a $50-million face lift.

Come April 14, however, when the Dodgers open their 2000 home schedule against the Cincinnati Reds, the bandages will be removed, the black eyes will be gone and the grand dame of Chavez Ravine won’t look a whole lot different than it did last season, even as the Dodgers try to bring it up to date in this era of luxury suites and “corporate” seating.

“The changes are few,” said Bob Wymbs, the Dodgers’ director of ticket marketing and sales. “While we’re adding some corporate areas to increase our revenue, it’s still Dodger Stadium.”

The most noticeable change will be a new seating area directly behind home plate that will bring the front row to within 58 feet of home plate, some two feet closer than the rubber on the pitcher’s mound and about 25 feet closer than it was last season.

The 565 seats in the exclusive Dugout Club area will be priced at $295 for the first two rows and $195 for the remaining seven, and will include parking, a pregame meal in a club under construction behind the new seats (and underneath the existing lower-level seats) and food, nonalcoholic drinks and wait service throughout the game.

“That area is going to be very popular with the Hollywood community,” said Wymbs, adding that as many as 20% of the seats are expected to be sold to “your higher-income individuals,” with the rest going to corporations. “It’s equivalent to the floor seats at the Staples Center or the Forum.”

Three rows of seats, about 500 in all and priced from $23 to $40, will be added on the field, extending from the dugouts to the foul poles.

And, finally, on the club level, extending from third base to the right-field foul pole, will be 33 suites, ranging in price from $150,000 to $300,000, depending on size and location.

With the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks playing in state-of-the-art ballparks, the San Francisco Giants set to open their new stadium in April and voters having approved funding for a new ballpark for the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers say they’re simply trying to keep pace economically with their National League West rivals while maintaining the ambience of one of the game’s most beloved stadiums.

Construction on the renovation, which also will include an upgraded press box and Stadium Club and the addition of conference rooms and a business center, began Sept. 27, the day after the Dodgers concluded their 1999 home schedule with a 10-7 victory over the San Diego Padres. It has been running on schedule, according to Dodger officials overseeing the project.

“One thing that’s been critically clear and important from the beginning with the contractors is, there’s no room for slippage,” said Fred Coons, director of business development. “Opening day is April 14, and we can’t give them a grace period of even one day--and they’re painfully aware of that. . . .

“We’ve been lucky with the weather and everything else. Renovations tend to be a little more difficult than new construction, just because you’ve got to deal with unknown conditions, but we’ve been lucky in that we . . . haven’t had that many surprises.”

Of the 31 suites available--the team will keep two for itself--the Dodgers say about 85% have been sold. They say about one-fourth of the Dugout Club seats have been sold, even though their marketing campaign has not yet kicked off. And they say all of the new field-level seats have been sold, mostly to fans displaced from other parts of the stadium.

Endeavor, a Beverly Hills talent agency, bought six tickets in the Dugout Club area, spending about $125,000 for four tickets in the second row and two in the third.

“It’s great for business,” said Marty Adelstein, a partner in the firm, whose baseball-loving clients include Adam Sandler, David Spade, Ray Liotta and Ken Olin. “The clients love sitting down as close to the field as possible. . . .

“I’ve sat in similar seats at [San Diego’s] Qualcomm Stadium, and they’re the best seats I’ve ever sat in for baseball. You feel like you’re part of the game.”

Still, the price gave him pause.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “They’d better field a good team.”

Construction of the new seats behind home plate eliminates the old dugout-level seats, and the suites will knock out seats on the club level, leaving about 300 season-ticket accounts, totaling some 1,100 seats, displaced.

Those fans were given the choice of moving to seats on the field or loge levels, including the new field-level seats, or moving to the remaining club-level seats along the left-field foul line.

Few complained, Wymbs said.

“Most fans generally understand that, like every other stadium, we had to add luxury suites,” he said. “And since we gave them so many choices, people generally found something they liked.”

One was Mark Tenser, president and CEO of Crown International Pictures, a Beverly Hills-based film production company, and owner of four season seats on the club level for the last 25 years.

“My first reaction was, ‘Why?’ ” Tenser said. “But then they explained it to us and my wife and I went down there and . . . we liked what they were doing to improve the stadium.”

His new seats are on the loge level, lower than his previous seats and closer to home plate.

“We can see the field much better, so we’re pleased,” he said. “It’s going to work out fine for us.”

The Dodgers are confident that the renovation will work out fine for everybody. The addition of the revenue-producing suites and other high-end seats, they say, enables the team to maintain lower prices in the rest of the stadium. None of the seats from last season has gone up more than $3 in price. The cost of seats in the outfield pavilions and upper deck remains $6, and 18,000 other seats will increase $1.

“I think the fans will be surprised by how few changes they’re even able to notice,” Dodger President Bob Graziano said. “I think they’re going to be pleased that we’ve maintained the integrity and character of the stadium while being able to enhance it economically.”