CHS Field, situated in Lowertown St. Paul, is the new home to the St. Paul Saints baseball team. The location chosen for the project was originally a vacant and polluted industrial property, but was transformed into a sustainable ballpark and downtown entertainment hub through the hard work and innovative ideas of the City of Saint Paul, Ryan Companies, Braun Intertec and their partners.
Developed in 1885, the long-standing site held a coal gas manufacturing building, shoe factory, meat packing plant and more. Prior to redevelopment, almost the entire 11-acre site was impacted by soil, groundwater, and/or vapor contaminants. Removing all contaminated soil wasn’t economically feasible, or practical to complete the project. Instead, the team envisioned a remediation plan that would protect human health and the environment while safely managing certain impacts in place. The plan included: pre-demolition abatement, source removals, an impermeable barrier, buffer zones, and installing a vapor mitigation system. A total of 71,546.83 tons of contaminated soil and 10,474.23 tons of asbestos-contaminated material was removed from the site and properly disposed of.
Thanks to extensive use of green practices and because it is the first stadium to comply with Minnesota’s B3 Sustainable Building 2030 Energy Standards, CHS Field is the “greenest ballpark in America”. Nearly 60 percent of the site is comprised of green space, an amenity in a downtown urban area. Other notable features include solar panels, water reclamation, clean stormwater, an on-site dog park, and sustainable transit. This previously blighted property is now a development anchor for the east end of downtown St. Paul – inspiring new restaurants, brew pubs and other commercial businesses to open nearby.
In 2016, CHS Field won a Minnesota Brownfield’s Rescape Award and aFinance and Commerce Top Project Award.
