Park at Wrigley Pictures, Update on Opening
Opening day is just days away. The Chicago Cubs are ready to defend the championship, but is Wrigley? I don’t say that in the 2015 sense of, the Cubs will play half of their home games without a huge section of Wrigley Field open. I am talking about the Park at Wrigley. The large community gathering center the Cubs had planned to have open for the 2017 season.
If you are unfamiliar the park will be the host of numerous community events. Already detailed events are farmers markets, movie nights, concerts, food, beer and wine tastings, and a great centralized area for fans to “pre-game” on Cubs game days. Here is the full calendar of events planned. Oh, and it opens very soon!
Park at Wrigley opens 4/10! @GreenCityMarket+@CrateandBarrel, @MusicBoxTheatre, @OldTownSchool to host free events: https://t.co/aEm0FIu3m2 pic.twitter.com/zyiSENgGDw
— ParkatWrigley (@parkatwrigley) March 29, 2017
With the park expected to open on April 10th, or only 12 days from now, I wanted to take a look at the progress. So I grabbed my camera and my laptop and stopped by Wrigley Field for lunch. What I found was… they have some work to do, sort of.
First let me say this, the retail building is absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know if the camera does it justice. The classic Wrigley style brick on the black tinted glass works as a way to pay homage to Wrigley. When looking through the windows however, I can see that there were multiple rooms with only the frame of where a wall or door would go yet nothing but wires and steel were visible.
Oh, and the construction workers seemed to be very used to people walking by taking pictures. I had even seen one woman asking some to pose (which they politely declined).
Here are a couple of things I am really excited about. The huge screen for movies (and perhaps playoff viewing parties).
And since I find myself in Wrigleyville a lot for work, this is a great option for me to stop by.
There is a GREAT Starbucks on Sheffield, which is the other side of Wrigley. This will provide yet another space to pick up a quick drink while at a community event or after a chilly April day game. It appears that coffee drinkers will be able to experience a larger Starbucks menu (I believe at either location). Here is how the Park at Wrigley website explains the new location.
In addition to Starbucks’ core menu, the store will feature an interactive coffee bar where baristas bring the craft of coffee to life through unique brewing techniques such as Clover, pour over, press, chemex, siphon, Black Eagle manual espresso machine and Nitro Cold Brew taps.
I have tried the Nitro Cold Brew taps and they are absolutely great. As a coffee drinker, and someone that visits a ton of coffee shops throughout the day, I have never bragged about a coffee until this one.
There were three of these neat looking light poles at the entrances. When I got to look at one more closely, there were a ton of wires within the structure which begged the question – will there be wireless?
When looking into the construction area I saw a strange, intertwining, circular structure. It is either a seating area, perhaps stage area, or fountain. I wasn’t able to see a picture or description on the Park at Wrigley website.
The rest of the area looks like it is in its final stages. The crew was putting out and flattening out leveling sand. This will undoubtedly go underneath the remaining brick or turf that will be installed.
I believe that it will be brick since there were tons of these flats of bricks all around the park and stacked up across the street.
All in all the park looks to be great. They have kept the “Wrigley-feel” in something that is completely new. This park makes Wrigley viable for years and year, but also continues to keep Wrigley at the center of this unique community.
If you were wondering how the hotel was doing…
Well… not that great. But they aren’t expecting to open the hotel until 2018.
While incredibly impressed with the build, this is still and forever will be my favorite picture of Wrigley.
