page_title: Busch Stadium
section_title: Construction and opening
hierarchical_section_title: Busch Stadium / History / Construction and opening
caption_attribution_description: Picture taken by Chris Hertling (CHertling) 6/26/05 from the St. Louis MetroLink station adjacent to new Busch Stadium Copyright (c) 2005 Chris Hertling Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". 06:37, 9 July 2005 . . Chertling . . 1024 × 768 (102,994 bytes)
context_page_description: Busch Stadium, also referred to informally as "New Busch Stadium" or "Busch Stadium III", is a baseball park located in St. Louis, Missouri, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals, the city's Major League Baseball franchise. The stadium has a seating capacity of 44,494, and contains 3,706 club seats and 61 luxury suites. It replaced Busch Memorial Stadium and occupies a portion of that stadium's former footprint. A commercial area, dubbed Ballpark Village, was built adjacent to the stadium over the remainder of the former stadium's footprint.
  The stadium opened on April 4, 2006 with an exhibition between the minor league Memphis Redbirds and Springfield Cardinals, both affiliates of the St. Louis Cardinals, which Springfield won 5-3 with right-hander Mike Parisi recording the first win. The first official major league game occurred on April 10, 2006 as the Cardinals defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 6–4 behind an Albert Pujols home run and winning pitcher Mark Mulder.
  The highest attendance for a sports event other than baseball was on May 23, 2013, when 48,263 people watched Chelsea Football Club and Manchester City Football Club play a friendly match.
context_section_description: New Busch Stadium was designed by Populous (then known as HOK Sport) and built by Hunt Construction with an estimated cost of $344.8 million, which proved too low by $20.2 million to its final cost of $365 million. Populous' senior project designer for Busch Stadium was Jim Chibnall, who was also the lead designer of Progressive Field in Cleveland, Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Sydney Olympic Stadium and other notable stadiums throughout the world.
  The field level (16,880 seats), terrace level (9,150), and bleachers (3,661) were completed in time for opening day, with total capacity on that day of 37,962, not including up to 2,751 standing room tickets. An integrated LED video and scoring system from Daktronics was installed in the stadium prior to its opening, featuring a video display measuring 32 feet (9.8 m) high by 52 feet (16 m) wide and three message displays, as well as more than 100 feet (30 m) of digital ribbon board technology.
  Construction on the seating area was completed in late May increasing the capacity for the May 29, 2006 game vs the Houston Astros with finishing touches performed throughout the year. Including all 2,886 standing-room-only tickets for the general public and the suites and party rooms, the stadium's total capacity is 46,861. Natural grass turf was installed in March 2006.
caption: Busch Stadium under construction
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