Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas has begun its transformation from a baseball venue to a multi-purpose facility that will host the Dallas Renegades XFL American football franchise and North Texas Soccer Club, which competes in the USL League One division.
Globe Life Park has served as the home of the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball franchise since 1994 but the recently concluded 2019 season marked the team’s last at the ballpark. The Rangers will move into the state-of-the-art Globe Life Field, a 40,000-seat venue that is due to open in March.
Globe Life Park will continue to operate as a sports venue in the Rangers’ absence and will have two new tenants from 2020. As part of its reconfiguration, the stadium will be built with an American football field and soccer pitch that will run along what was previously the first base/right-field side of the ballpark.
In order to accommodate the north end of the new field, Globe Life Park’s third-based dugout and the lower 18 rows of the third-base seating bowl will be removed. The south-end zone of the field will begin around 50 feet out from the front row of the Home Run Porch in a move designed to improve fans’ sightlines.
The first-base dugout will remain in place, with the tunnel to be used for access to the home locker rooms. A further tunnel will be built in the north-end zone for access to the visiting and officials locker rooms.
Shaw Sports Turf will provide a synthetic grass field for the playing surface, which will be unmarked to allow for easy field conversion between the two sports. Elsewhere, a permanent seating structure will be built on the field’s east side in the area that was previously left field, the visiting bullpen and the left-field reserved seating area. Around 4,000 seats will be added below the left-field club level.
Other upgrades will include television booths and coaches’ booths in the lower suite level at the mid-field location, a renovation of the Rangers clubhouse to accommodate the Renegades and two auxiliary locker rooms.
Work on Globe Life Park is expected to be finished by early 2020 ahead of the start of the Renegades season in early February and the start of North Texas Soccer Club’s campaign the following month. North Texas Soccer Club is an affiliate of Major League Soccer team FC Dallas.
Image: Texas Rangers
Share this