NLP Construction Moves Quickly as Season Looms

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NLP Construction Moves Quickly as Season Looms

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NLP Construction Moves Quickly as Season Looms
by Francis Ferry, NLN baseball beat writer

January 3, 2024: Aurora, Colorado – The Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance may have signed a new media deal and eased stadium construction rules with the ‘have-nots’ in mind, but the Borealis are never blind to a good deal and have jumped to take advantage of the increased allowable seating at PEBA parks, as new seating is being added to bring Northern Lights Park’s capacity to 60,000.

The first change to Aurora’s home in four years – and third overall since the League’s birth, will mostly build upon changes from the past. The right field seating area that was built as a permenant feature above the Borealis Museum (added in 2013), will rise upward to meet the upper rim of the stadium. This new feature will add approximately 2,000 new seats and with the stadium’s unique postion on the edge of Cherry Creek Lake, the team received permission from the Colorado Department of Parks & Recreation to build a broad pier out onto the lake that will both provide support for the new seating extension and provide a ‘baseball memory lane’ walkway that, at it’s end will host a broad picnic area – both of which are planned to be planted in a manner similar to New York City’s High Line. Alexandre Poirier’s gallery AuroBora is expected to be a major contributor to the open space.

Likewise, an extension to the seating that has been added between the foul pole and the Coke bottle will be extended upward to meet the upper rim of the stadium in left field, adding another 2,000 seats. A support system similar to what was built in right field, housing the museum, will be constructed and at street level will host an indoor baseball facility with an anticipated ten batting cages, five pitching mounds and five of what have been called ‘fielding swatches’ for Aurora’s youth baseball organization – as well as the general public, to use year round. It’s expected to be a big wintertime hit for the high school baseball scene throughout the Greater Denver area.

Lastly, the team will be moving fans closer to the action as the wall along the fields perimeter has been moved to accommodate the addition of 800 seats – foul pole to foul pole, and from each bullpen to the edge of the dugouts an new ‘submerged’ seating area that puts fans at ‘eye level’ with the field. This high-price ticket area will be sponsored by the Boulder Brew Association and will offer fans – through a wait staff, the finest craft beers the Front Range has to offer, as well as delectable bites from some of the region’s finest chefs. No details have been released as of yet.

The Borealis have topped 4,000,000 in attendance the past three years, and it’s expected that with the additions – and continued solid play, that they will top the All-Time attendance mark set by Shin Seiki in 2021 of 4,566,470. Of note, that same season Aurora set their own attendance record of 4,515,350. Fans, who have been somewhat passive in their support the past couple of seasons – despite Aurora’s Three-peat (if 4,000000 fans can be called passive), are flocking to the ticket offices (figuratively speaking) to snatch-up season tickets – despite the meager 25 cent price increase, sales are up 26%. It seems that the signing of Adrian Peterson has shown the fans that the team is both intent on staying on top and willing to spend money to do so – something many on the Twitter feeds suggested the team was otherwise inclined to do.

For Aurora, the additional cash will help as the team continues to strive to balance the cost of being competitive with that of the fan going to the game. Last season Aurora’s ticket prices were the 8th highest in the league – behind behemoths Florida, Crystal Lake, Shin Seiki and Bakersfield. Even Yuma, Amsterdam and Arlington had higher prices. The modest ticket price increase shouldn’t kill the pocketbook of the average family, and the increased seating will give more fans a chance to witness the best baseball has to offer.
Michael Topham, President Golden Entertainment & President-CEO of the Aurora Borealis
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