I trekked down to Atlanta on Friday to put eyes on Centennial Yards, the 55-acre mixed-use development (costing somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion) that's nestled below Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena in a downtown area Atlantans have disaffectionately called “The Gulch” for decades.
CIM Group, the company behind the project, has an intricate and large 3D model to look over. But unlike many of the other significant sports-adjacent mixed-use projects I’ve been writing about recently that still only exist as renderings, the Centennial Yards project -- led by Brian McGowan (whose past bosses have included Barack Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger) -- has been underway for eight years. From CIM’s 22nd-floor office, there is an actual construction site to look at below, with several buildings completed. A hotel and apartment building worth a combined $900 million are well under way, with at least 10 buildings and an open fan gathering area scheduled for completion before eight FIFA World Cup matches are played nearby in 2026.
I’ll tell you much more about this project in the coming months.
Industry emphasis on premium has Delaware North pushing Patina Restaurant Group to forefront
Winning the general admission food and beverage provision business for next month’s F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix was a big step for Delaware North Cos. (DNC) and Patina Restaurant Group on several fronts.
For one, Delaware North Sportservice hasn’t won an up-for-grabs stadium or arena account since the pandemic, and though the Vegas GP isn’t a fixed venue, it’s incredibly high-profile. Second, it marks Delaware North and Patina’s entry into motorsports. And third, Vegas F1 another successful bid by DNC positioning Patina, the restaurant group that the company acquired in 2014, at the forefront.
That new dynamic speaks to the sports industry’s laser focus on premium. Many venues are moving from three levels of premium for their building or event to as many as 10 distinct premium offerings -- a level of specificity that requires more high-end expertise. That's led to new partnerships popping up (more on that later) or a rethinking of existing assets, like at Delaware North.
Even the appearance of being more premium is critical. Patina operates the food service at MLB’s Manhattan HQ and 14 dining concepts across Disney properties, while also running a slew of high-profile restaurants and premium F&B for PGA of America tournaments. Earlier this month, Patina also handled catering for the swanky Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic in California.
So, what’s the difference between a Patina and Sportservice general admission F&B offering?
“In a perfect world, if we’re doing our jobs, there shouldn’t be that delineation,” said Delaware North Sportservice President Jamie Obletz. “With Patina, you get a lens of a restaurateur, a higher-end catering business that has grown up in the likes of New York and L.A. and Miami, that has that mindset that it brings to the proposition. Sportservice is more legacy, mass market. Our job is to find the common ground where the landing spot is such that’s it a seamless execution.”
Welcome to Miami?
The Patina/Sportservice tandem is in the running for another marquee account, Inter Miami’s Freedom Park stadium, set to open in 2026. Inter Miami’s RFP features:
- A new 25,000-seat stadium.
- An adjacent mixed-use development, including a 58-acre park.
- A sexy market in Miami that is putting an emphasis on premium and a "wow" factor.
- A club that's high-profile with high demand for tickets.
“You’re checking all the boxes of what’s going on in the industry in one process,” said Obletz.
Patina was again central to Delaware North’s bid; the company is one of four finalists that presented to the MLS club, multiple sources confirmed to me, alongside Aramark Sports + Entertainment, Sodexo Live and Proof of the Pudding (which paired with F1 mainstays Do & Co, from Austria).
It’s not clear when a final decision will be made by Inter Miami.
Patina only started showing up in DNC sports bids in 2020 when the company broke into golf by winning the 2021 PGA Championship and KPMG Women's PGA Championship business. It’s common for F&B providers to partner with high-end catering or restaurant partners to try to win new business. That happened in Miami, Obletz said, as two or three of DNC’s competitors paired with outside premium brands, like Proof and Do & Co, for example.
It remains to be seen if that organic combo will deliver Delaware North a big stadium account win. “That’s the special sauce -- we’re all in one house,” said Patina President John Kolaski. “It’s the same exact name on the front of the jersey for us, the name on the back may be Patina, but all one voice, one vision.”
4Topps, InProduction help Florida State stay home during football venue renovation
At the end of the 2023 college football season, the entire west side of Florida State’s Doak Campbell Stadium was torn down as part of a $265 million renovation. Half of it was rebuilt by Manhattan Construction Group and Culpepper Construction during the ensuing offseason, and work on the concourses beneath the newly installed precast concrete seating bowl continues, even during the Seminoles’ 2024 season.
InProduction, the company that built Northwestern’s temporary football stadium, put 7,300 temporary seats into the lower portion of FSU's half-built west side. That has enabled FSU to continue hosting fans there during home games and -- even though Doak Campbell’s capacity is down 24,000 from normal -- keeps the school from needing to leave Tallahassee for a season in Orlando, Tampa or Jacksonville.
The visual effect of the temporary seats up against the new precast above is seamless, said Ben Zierden, senior associate AD/capital projects and facilities at FSU. “The fact that these types of products are out there really allowed us to be aggressive with our stadium renovation on the west side,” he said. “We knew that once [the west side] was dropped, we weren’t going to be able to build it back in one offseason.”
And while the west side of the stadium is getting all the love in this renovation, Zierden and company felt the east side fan experience needed some attention, too. They screwed more than 14,000 cushioned 4Topps seat pans -- the bottoms of seats only -- into the bleacher seating on the east side this offseason, improving that fan experience dramatically just by raising fans’ butts off the metal bleachers a bit. The FSU installation is the largest yet for 4Topps (and will be followed by more next year).
“It wasn’t a construction project to put those in,” Zierden said. “Didn't need a subcontractor or construction manager to manage it and it still enhanced the fan experience on the east side.”
The 73-year-old stadium’s seating tread -- the space each fan has within a row -- is so narrow (at just 27 inches) that there was no room to add padded seatbacks, too; a fan’s knees would protrude into the padded seatback in front of them. Dewey Newton (Turner Construction) and Len Moser (Barton Malow) told me new college stadiums are being built with seating treads of 30 to 33 inches, and in the NFL as high as 35.
InProduction and 4Topps are helping schools stay in their stadiums during large renovations or quickly turn underutilized areas into money-makers, like at Wake Forest, BYU and Cincinnati. This has also given those schools flexibility that’s badly needed right now.
“These schools and athletic departments are trying to extract as much revenue and value out of the seating bowl as they can,” said Deron Nardo, 4Topps's principal and president. “This idea is more front and center since NIL emerged. They have to (financially) support getting better players.”
AXS formalizes its focus on flexible ticket memberships with new hire
As a SoCal kid, Mason Donley first became interested in hockey when the Kings signed Wayne Gretzky. He later worked 24 years for AEG in ticketing roles with the NHL club and Crypto.com Arena before joining AXS a few months ago in a new role for the company as its head of sports and subscriptions.
The job is focused on creating novel ticketing membership programs for the company’s sports team clients and, more broadly, helping AXS clients adapt to modern buyers. Donley’s role will feature ongoing consultation for clients, and he’ll be involved in AXS’ new business pursuits. He’s working closely with AXS partner FanRally, for example, which is nudging the industry from rigid season tickets into flexible memberships.
“The current state is the need for more flexibility,” Donley told me. “That’s exchange, it’s buyback [and] the ability to upgrade and customize your experience on a game-to-game basis.”
AXS and FanRally teamed to help Frontwave Arena launch with a ticketing bank offer in which fans can redeem dollars they put into their bank for access to a variety of premium spaces in the arena for a variety of its events, whether it's MASL's San Diego Sockers, the NBA G League's San Diego Clippers or other events.
It’s getting harder for sports teams, events, and venues to sell rigid, 40-home-game season tickets. But “if the value met what you’re looking for, it’s an easier sell,” said Donley, and “that’s what the industry is looking for.”
Would you eat this?
Aramark Sports + Entertainment created the Sweet Baby Ray's Crown Sticky Buns for Game 3 of the Yankees-Royals ALDS at Kauffman Stadium last week. The sticky buns included croissant sheets, sticky caramel, cinnamon, brown sugar crumble, pulled pork and apple BBQ sauce.
My verdict: Um, yes.
Is your venue doing something creative/delicious/ridiculous with its F&B offerings? Let me know!”
A big deal
It's very appropriate to have this as my "big deal" this week since it was designed by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), which is designing the A’s new ballpark in Las Vegas. You may also remember the Danish architectural firm's concept rendering for a potential Commanders stadium that was surrounded by a moat.
BIG's "big idea"? 3D-printed spaces within or adjacent to sports venues or events. The photo above comes from the world’s first 3D-printed hotel and residences in Marfa, Texas.
Speed reads
- Take a look at the latest projects on the drawing board in SBJ's Building Blocks feature.
- New Orioles owner David Rubenstein made it clear to my colleague Joe Lemire that Camden Yards can’t be updated to reflect the abundant demand for premium spaces as is the case in other cities and, instead, needs balance. Populous has been contracted to lead the renovations, and Rubenstein also indicated the possibility that Janet Marie Smith -- the famed baseball architect who oversaw the original construction of the industry-defining ballpark for the Orioles -- might play some role in the refurbishment.
- I looked at how a critical meeting at MLB’s offices helped the Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels and city of Richmond complete a 15-year ballpark mission.
- Range Sports acquired Impact Sports + Entertainment for an undisclosed amount and formed a new hospitality and experiences division called Range Access.
- While in London this past week, execs from the Bears were focused on a B2B message around their stalled lakefront Chicago stadium project while hosting more than 70 officials from 40 “current and potential” sponsors, Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren told SBJ's Ben Fischer. Warren’s goal at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was to have sponsors “see, firsthand, what a new building can add to a city, to a region, and to a franchise."