- [Narrator] Nestled in the
heart of a neighborhood Wrigley Field is where Cub fans
have come together for generations. To soak up sunshine, breathe in fresh air, and root, root, root,
for the Cubbies. While baseball has changed,
The Friendly Confines endured, linking the games'
past and present year after year. Until approaching its 100th birthday,
Wrigley Field started showing its age. Although still beloved by fans the old ballpark had slipped into disrepair and a political clash over the rooftops
threatened its future. Many felt Wrigley Field
had reached its demise. Instead, the Cubs launched
an improbable decade-long effort to preserve and restore an icon of baseball and a hallmark of American history. This is the story of "Saving Wrigley Field." ♪ [music] ♪ - [Tom] I like to think
we have three kinds of fans. We have the kind of fan
that was born to be a Cub fan their parents were Cub fans,
like you inherited the team. Then we have millions of fans all over the country, largely because of WGN. But there's a third fan,
they walk into Wrigley Field and they take that first breath
inside of Wrigley and say, "I'm a fan of this team." So when we were looking at
purchasing the team, we knew that part of that purchase was a responsibility and obligation to Wrigley Field. And Wrigley was a huge concern. We just didn't know what to expect. - [Crane] I joined the Cubs in 1994. There was a lot of things
that we'd heard about the building. The true severity of our issues began in '03,
when the first of our power issues happened. We had to suspend baseball games. - [Broadcaster] We've got a power
outage here at Wrigley Field. - [Broadcaster] Well, I think, Chip,
that everybody is so surprised the Cubs have four in the first that even the lights blew out. - Then in '04 we had
the concrete fall for the first time and that obviously got everyone's attention. - [Reporter] Netting was still being put
up well into the morning hours. The measure has been taken to
protect fans from falling concrete. - And then in '05, we brought
Jimmy Buffett to Wrigley Field and he has a song, "Fins" where all of the fans all go
to the left and to the right. And when we looked back to the upper deck,
you could see the building start to shift. And effectively, as we approached
the 100th anniversary time had run out on Wrigley Field. - Under previous ownership long discussed plans
to renovate the ballpark never got off the ground. Now, the Cubs prepared for one last effort. - So we divided the project into four pieces. I took the design phase Alex Sugarman and Jon Greifenkamp
took the financing phase Mike Lufrano and his team led the
regulatory phase and Carl Rice led the construction phase. We knew this project is not a convenience,
it's a necessity. Like, we have to get this done. ♪ [music] ♪ - All Cubs fans know Wrigley Field is home field. But for the 60,000 residents
of Lakeview, this is home. Since 1914, Wrigley Field has been
a centerpiece of the neighborhood. It served as a playing field for baseball,
football, and other sports. It's staged concerts and historic events. It's offered relief from wars and pandemics. Along the way, the neighborhood fixture
earned its nickname, the Friendly Confines. But that doesn't mean the Cubs and the community have always been on friendly terms. - [Marc] There has been a
continual source of tension between the Cubs
and the Wrigleyville community for decades now. It really wasn't a big deal
when the Cubs were drawing flies. But as the Cubs became more successful,
as more people came to Wrigley Field, as broadcasting mandated
that there be more games at night the tension really started picking up. - [Mike] I grew up about
eight blocks from Wrigley Field. Always wanted to play shortstop,
but about high school age, realized I couldn't hit a curveball and ended up becoming a lawyer. And so I certainly understood
the trepidation that neighbors had. - In the 1980s, the neighbors' trepidation was focused on the Cubs
attempts to install lights. - [Reporter] The Tribune Company, the owner
of the Cubs, would like to install lights and play night games, but local residents
have successfully fought that idea. - Lights coming to Wrigley Field was
almost a religious war. - [Crowd] No lights! - [Charlotte] It was war,
a certain kind of war continually. And it worked very well. My name is Charlotte Newfeld,
and I'm a professional artist and troublemaker. I lived in the neighborhood for about 60 years. And I was President of Citizens
United for Baseball and Sunshine. It's so unusual they have a stadium like that in the middle of
a very active neighborhood. We didn't like the idea of night games because we figured, you know,
people were going to leave and so on. This neighborhood is one of
the most congested in the city of Chicago. In fact, it's as dense a residence as Tokyo. We wanted it done in cooperation
with the people in the neighborhood and we wanted to win as much as possible. - Charlotte organized a neighborhood movement and the Cubs' plan to light
the ballpark was put in jeopardy. - We were the organization that understood that this is Chicago
and this is a political world. And the shirts and signs were
sold all over the neighborhood. - Rather than compromise with the neighbors... - [Dallas] I don't know anything about lights and I don't know anything
about what it does to communities. - The Cubs, then led by Dallas Green
tried to steamroll them. - Dallas Green, he was so easy to hate. And if it hadn't been for him,
I don't think we ever would have put up the kind of so called battle
we did about night games. - One of Dallas' claims was that day games were bad for
players' digestive systems. - Makes them constipated. So we bought about 25 barrels of prunes. - After years of hostilities
to win neighborhood support the first night game was played
on August 8th, 1988. - [Man] One, two, three, let there be light. - The Cubs got their lights,
but history showed that any attempt to change Wrigley Field was sure
to be met with resistance. - There was going to be a battle any time the Cubs tried to make
any meaningful improvements to the stadium, to Wrigley Field. The lights were the beginning, but obviously,
by no means, the end. - [Heather] When The Tribune
decided to sell the team it was a little bit
nerve wracking for people because, you know, it's like,
what's the new ownership going to be like? I think people were skeptical and mostly afraid. - We are Cubs fans with deep Chicago roots. And all of us love the team. We love the stadium. And we love Chicago. - Tom and the family, they were serious. But based on history,
it was hard to take it at face value from the beginning. - We're going to do everything we can to improve the Wrigley Field experience
for the fans that are coming today and to preserve the Wrigley Field experience for
the future generations of fans to come, so that they can share in that special unique magic that is Wrigley Field. - And nobody knew the Ricketts family.
They didn't know what they did. Keeping that park was important to people. They didn't want what happened
to Comiskey Park. - Comiskey Park, old Yankee Stadium,
Tiger Stadium, Forbes Field, Shibe Park, baseball was once played in beautiful jewel box
stadiums inside thriving neighborhoods. - There's really only two that are left,
Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, where the owners have taken the time,
and the passion, and the patience to invest
and keep the ballparks alive. And that means something not just to the Cubs,
but to the community. - They'd make a terrible mistake if they rebuilt into
some kind of a modern new place because of where it is in the community. It was very important to people that the Cubs were part
of a neighborhood. - Unlike the battle over lights the Cubs would tackle doubts from the neighborhood head on as they planned for renovations. - I'll never forget the first time I walked into the
office of the Lakeview Citizens Council and someone looked at me and said, "Gosh,
nobody from the Cubs has been in here since William Wrigley left." - So I was around for the Tribune ownership. But with the Ricketts family, it was just different. There were dozens and dozens
of community meetings during the approval process for the 1060 Project. You know, that's how you
develop long lasting, trustworthy relationships. - [Laura] You can't just expect people
to trust you. This is their neighborhood. This is their ballpark. And you've got to show up. You can't just say what you're going to do you've got to do it. - But perhaps the loudest doubts came from public
officials in the neighborhood. - [Ald. Tom] As the alderman,
you just got a lot of balls in the air trying to keep everybody happy. So I think we've been good to the Cubs. But I don't think it will ever be enough. - Everything the Cubs tried to do to improve the
stadium and make it better, seemed to have local opposition,
seemed to have City Hall opposition. And they had to go through processes that the other local teams
really haven't had to endure. - An early assessment estimated renovations would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. - Over the last 40 or 50 years we've had more than 40 new baseball stadiums built. In almost every case,
there has been a significant amount of public sector financial contribution. The White Sox, they had a stadium that was fully funded
by the taxpayers. They have ongoing renovations
funded by the taxpayers. What happened for the White Sox
is the typical process of how these stadiums get built or renovated
around the country. For the Cubs, it was diametrically
completely the opposite. - Mayor Emanuel made it very clear
from the beginning that if Wrigley Field was going to be saved,
it was going to be done almost exclusively by the Ricketts family with no help from the city of Chicago. We also knew we had great ambition on the field. So with no ability to finance the project off the
balance sheet of the team, we looked outside to equity sales,
historic tax credits, some help from the league, and some project financing we were able to put in place. All of that work was stitched together
by Alex Sugarman and Jon Greifenkamp, and that had never been done in
any other Major League Baseball project. - When the Ricketts family bought the team,
we knew they had deep pockets. And I was very clear to the family and said look, there's liabilities with this. Number one, there's no parking. Number two, there's a landmark. And three, there's a rooftop agreement. - But the rooftop agreement was really
more of a neighborly dispute. - It used to be that when Jack Brickhouse was calling games in the afternoon, there'd be some people
hanging out the windows and they'd watched the game. Then, people had the bright idea to, "Hey, wait a minute, why don't we buy these, and we'll charge more rent because people can watch
the games from the windows." Then, didn't take too long before they said, "Wait a minute,
let's put stands up on the roof, let's have a catering service, and sell tickets to Cubs games without having to pay the Cubs anything." And they made a lot of money. - Until 2002, when the Cubs,
owned by The Tribune Company sued the rooftops
for copyright infringement. The suit was resolved with an agreement,
which according to the rooftop owners, prevented any changes to Wrigley Field
that would block their view. - With the political establishment
supporting them they were able to milk it
for a lot of years and make a ton of money off of it. But they never really had a lot of the rights
they claimed they had. - Now, to solve their financing puzzle, the Cubs needed to put up advertising in the outfield. - They wanted to put up signage like every other ballpark in baseball. And the rooftop owners said,
"You can't do that becasuse it's going to block our view." - A very strong alderman needs to be able to step up and say, "Hey, we're not doing this." And this is the case where
you have the David versus Goliath. - Buoyed by the alderman's support,
the rooftops threatened to sue the Cubs, and the renovation of Wrigley Field was pushed to the brink of collapse. The Cubs even considered the unthinkable finding a new neighborhood to call home. - Other municipalities raised their
hand, principally, Rosemont. And so we did, quietly,
behind the scenes, explore you know, what would it mean
if we left Wrigley Field. - And I just thought that would
break that chain that connection people have
with 100 years of Wrigley Field. The Cubs and Wrigley
are really one and the same. - So even with a lawsuit
looming from the rooftops the Cubs pushed on with their plan
to preserve their longtime home brick by crumbling brick. So many historic ballparks have been
lost to the wrecking ball for one simple reason, the bottom line. - There are people that will say that fixing a
100-year-old ballpark is an irrational choice. There are certainly cheaper ways
to provide baseball facilities. - Repairing a bygone ballpark
can cost as much and sometimes more than building a new stadium. And even after restorations, an old ballpark still lacks the modern amenities that allow teams to grow their payroll. This could easily have been Wrigley's fate. - But Wrigley is different, it really is. And you can't quantify it
and you can't compare it to other ballparks. And so we just knew
that the right thing to do was to save the ballpark that means
so much to the fans. - So the 1060 Project was launched. And the Cubs formed an
all star team of architects to not only preserve and restore
Wrigley Field, but also expand it. - [Tim] Renovating, restoring, revitalizing,
reenergizing a 100-year-old ballpark? Yeah, that's a crazy idea. Well, it's not that crazy,
let's do it. - [Andrew] Every contractor who worked on it,
every trade, every engineer, we all knew the importance of the project. - [Joseph] We're dealing with a building that almost exactly was 100 years old. And what we were trying to do was give it another life for another 100 years. - [Steven] Every conversation was, "We got to do it right." And if it took longer even if it took additional funds, the Ricketts family wanted it done right. - Unless the rooftops put an end to
the work before it could begin. In August 2014, the rooftops
followed through with their threats and filed a lawsuit against the city to block 1060 Project renovations. - Clearly, the project
would stall and potentially die if we waited for a resolution. So we faced the question,
do we stop the project or do we press forward? And with the support of our owners,
we moved forward. But always looming in the back of your mind was, we're doing all this work it all could get undone if we lost the lawsuit. - But press forward they did,
with a design inspired by other historic venues. Early in the project, the 1060 team toured
iconic sports sites that had seen that had seen their own notable updates. Madison Square Garden, the Rose Bowl, Lambeau Field, Keeneland Racetrack, Augusta National Golf Club, and of course, Fenway Park. - And so I built a sort of
reference point that we had to identify what are the iconic features at Wrigley that we have to absolutely
preserve no matter what? And then where will we get
a little more ambitious? - Because for all its history and charm Wrigley Field had significant problems
as it approached its 100th anniversary. And no one saw the issues more clearly than Cubs employees on the inside. - We had the worst facilities in baseball. - [Theo] It was comically bad,
like jaw-droppingly bad. You'd have to see it to believe it. - [Carl] Concession stands that were
beyond the industry norms, small bathrooms, steel issues, and that goes without
talking about the concrete. - [Colin] This old house looked dusty and it looked like
it needed a new coat of paint. But when you started getting into it,
it needed a lot more than that. - The 1060 Project presented a chance
to make restorations and add new amenities to every area of Wrigley Field. From the infrastructure to the superstructure, on the playing field, under the seating bowl, and high above the bleachers. The Cubs hoped to improve staff, player,
and fan spaces inside and outside the park. - We really internally would say we were
building the plane while we flew it. The plan wasn't fully baked,
it wasn't fully financed but I think it was important
for people to see that there was progress. - Somehow, when all was said and done,
it still had to feel like Wrigley Field. But this wouldn't be the first time the oldest ballpark in the National League would have to evolve to survive. ♪ [music] ♪ In 1914, Chicago restaurateur,
Charles Weeghman hired architect, Zachary Taylor Davis,
to design a ballpark for Weeghman's new team,
the Chicago Federals. On April 23rd, 1914,
Weeghman Park opened after just two months of construction for a reported cost of $250,000. From that day onward, the ballpark
was under near constant construction. - [Gunny] Wrigley Field,
if there's one thing that's constant about it it's that there's been constant change. - In 1915, just one year after it was built the ballpark was already expanding, with 4000 new seats. In 1923, at the rebranded Cubs Park, new owner, William Wrigley,
wanted to add more seats without changing the ballpark's footprint. To do so, he got creative. - The existing ballpark was cut into three parts,
sort of like a sausage. The one in right field was left alone, and the one in the center
was moved backwards, and then the left field portion
was moved along Seminary Street. - Somehow they managed to do this
with carts and horses and they put it back together again. And that's why the ballpark has
that sort of odd kinked shape. - What you ultimately end up with is this patchwork of a ballpark that may not be totally visible to the fans but to the construction guys and the
engineers is very evident. And so, we would often remind
people that Wrigley is perfectly imperfect. - In 1927 and 28,
at the now renamed Wrigley Field an upper deck was built above the grandstand. And during the 30s, the iconic bleachers, scoreboard, marquee, and ivy were all completed. Over the years that followed,
concrete was demolished and repoured. Bricks were raised and relaid. And lights, suites,
and a press box were all added. The 1060 Project would just be the latest iteration of a ballpark ever evolving. - In order to save buildings, we often
have to find a way to give them a new life. And the key is to find the things about it that made it important
to save it in the first place. Then after you're done with your intervention,
you haven't lost all that. That's really what the magic is. - Wrigley Field's magic is conjured up
by how it looks, feels, and is remembered
by generations of fans. - Your first ball game as an eight year old. You walk into the ballpark,
you have this emotional rush, those memories, the imprint, all that stuff gets embedded into what you think about the ballpark. It's like a physical trigger
for an emotional reaction. That's a lot of what had to be saved. - To preserve the essence of Wrigley Field,
the design team identified iconic features that would be untouchable
during the renovation. The marquee, the ivy, the shape of the outfield,
and the manual scoreboard. - Those are seen as being
what make Wrigley, Wrigley. They're in every photograph of every
kid that was ever in there. - Okay, whenever we have something that requires us to alter these the answer has to be no. And then that leaves us with the
rest of the canvas to work with. ♪ [music] ♪ - Five years after the Ricketts promised to save
Wrigley Field, the Cubs broke ground. - Not only will you see a preserved
and improved Wrigley Field but in that ballpark, you're going to see better
teams and championship baseball. [applause] I think we had a plan in place that we liked. We got the project rolling. And then it was all just
let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that it's not
more complicated than we think it will be. - [Interviewer] Was it more complicated than you
thought it would be? - Of course it was more complicated
than we thought it would be. ♪ [music] ♪ - Just one day after the 2014 season ended,
phase one of the 1060 Project began. - The construction phase was very exciting. And Carl Rice ran that for us. He started working here
when he was in high school. And some 30 years later,
he was leading a project to save the building. So, it was in good hands. But you really never know with a 100-year-old building, what you're going to find. - The project team had spent
years preparing for construction. But like any old house, surprises were waiting. - All the little warren of little rooms that are inside
of Wrigley Field, you don't actually know what's inside the walls until you open the wall up. - Through the open walls,
the steel structure was exposed, and engineers were concerned
by what they found. - We came to the conclusion
fairly early on that we need to improve
the structural integrity of this building. - Decades of patchwork changes
in the ballpark left the structure unfit
to support planned renovations. - As the construction started,
some of our fears were realized. We had planned on replating steel
where necessary. And what we learned pretty quickly was
much of the steel needed to be replaced. - And it was a really good thing we started doing that renovation when we did. Otherwise, I don't know if it would have been possible to preserve Wrigley Field. - Engineers studied
the ballpark's steel structure to calculate how they could distribute new loads to the ballpark's foundation. - And that, you know,
comes to the famous F line. And everybody goes, you know,
"What's the F line?" - It's the one that blocks your view when you're
sitting in the terrace reserve. That column line that's in front of you
is the F line. - The F line is the
workhorse of Wrigley Field's structure. Running from Wrigley's roof to underground,
it holds up the upper deck. Engineers discovered the columns,
which were originally installed in 1914, were only supported by shallow foundations,
some of which had deteriorated over the years. - Some of the studs were rusted through and maybe had rusted away, even. - Every column on the F line would need new deep foundations drilled 100 feet to bedrock. So, much of phase one would involve shoring up
Wrigley Field's infrastructure, so future phases could build upon it. - The issue we had is, okay,
we're going to have to lift the ballpark. And it had never been done before. - 1060 Project engineers invented a system to lift
Wrigley Field, essentially on stilts, while the foundations were restored
column by column. - It's like drilling for oil, right? So you would then put these micropiles
all the way down to bedrock. And then you would pressure grout
the pipe because it's a cylinder. Then you come back and you trim the tops off,
and you weld the plates to the top. On top of that plate,
there was a customized shoring tower built. And that was then welded to the column itself,
which would then transfer the load of the building to the temporary shoring tower,
to the four micropiles, thus transferring the load to bedrock. So, I would say it's simple construction. - This simple process would take
13 weeks per column. To do it all, the work would be carefully sequenced across three years. - You started to realize, wow,
this project is going to be huge, because you are really developing a system to support every part of the ballpark. - While the first F line columns were being restored to stabilize the lower and upper decks, work could simultaneously
unfold in the bleachers. Originally erected in the 30s,
the bleachers had been rebuilt several times over the years. But this was the first time the outfield wall would
need to come down in the process, along with Wrigley's famed ivy. - And the joke was, who's going to go in the witness protection program if the ivy dies. - The Wrigley Field ivy has adorned the ballpark's walls since it was first planted in 1937. Now, workers carefully detached it to preserve it. They laid the ivy on wire frames on the turf
and built a platform over it. This would allow masons to lay brick in a heated
enclosure while the ivy stayed cold. - If the ivy was put in its dormant state
in a warm environment, it would think it was spring
and come back to life and that would have killed it. So they had to build a platform
over it to keep it cold. - No one was certain this would work. So a Purdue University professor
cloned the ivy, just in case. But the ivy was only half the challenge. There was also the brick wall hidden behind it. - The wall, over time,
had deteriorated to a point where some of the ivy was literally
growing through the wall. And when the mason took down portions of the wall, he didn't need a hammer, he could just kind of take it off with this hand. - The nearly 80-year-old wall had
been designated an historic feature. So each brick had to be taken down, cleaned, reset, and then rebuilt into the wall. - It was like another huge milestone, you know,
kind of problem solved. - With the wall then propped up by stilts,
the bleachers were demolished, so Wrigley Field's most controversial
new feature could make its debut, the video boards. At the heart of the rooftops' lawsuit
to block the 1060 Project was the fear that video boards
would curb their business. - The argument that the rooftop owners made was they had the right to block any improvements to the stadium
that blocked their view. But that's not what the contract said. The contract actually said that
the Cubs could construct improvements, so long as the city approved those improvements. And that is exactly what wound up happening. - When Judge Kendall rendered her ruling in favor of the team, it was a great relief. In fact, we flew the W that day. She just decided this lawsuit is without merit. And for all of us, it was a weight
off our shoulders. - The political obstacle was cleared,
but the video boards still faced opposition. - In terms of fan sentiment, they were unpopular. So, you knew this was not
going to be easily overcome. - Video boards are common at other ballparks. But some Cubs fans felt they'd clash with
Wrigley Field's timeless image. - One thing that we heard
loud and clear from our fans was that the hand-operated scoreboard in center field was really meaningful to them. And so we didn't want to take away anything from that hand-operated scoreboard. - Per tradition, balls and strikes would still be kept on the hand-operated board, as well as scores from around the league. And the video boards would focus on content fans said was missing from their experience. - They wanted more information
about our players. They wanted more statistics about baseball. That was back to honoring
the history and traditions of the past and trying to kind of
modernize the things that they loved. - The video boards would be one of the
1060 Project's first deliverables and one of the most difficult. - There must have been well over 1000 pieces that make up that video board. All these little connection points. And we knew we had a deadline. ♪ [music] ♪ - The video boards needed to be in
place by the Cubs home opener. And there was a growing concern
they wouldn't be installed in time. - It was basically a race,
a sprint from the moment we started demolition. - Those challenges also got magnified
when you started to realize that you were only going to be able
to do that construction during the winter of Chicago. - Trying to erect that massive steel in February was the challenge of the month. Working in the cold, you grin and bear it but you're not putting ironworkers
on steel with ice. You're just not. - The deadline was made even tighter when Major League Baseball named the Cubs as their official opening game, meaning the video boards would need to be ready one day earlier than planned. With four days to go,
the structure was finally in place, but not a single LED panel had been installed. - I remember looking and going,
"How the heck are we going to get this done?" I had never seen that much work in my career. - The last panel went on the
Saturday before the Sunday night game. And it was a pretty interesting experience watching that go in and getting tested on that day. - There was a huge feeling of accomplishment and relief all at the same time without a doubt. Yeah, everybody sort of high fiving each other going, "We made it." - [Broadcaster] This is the debut... - The video boards made their debut by paying tribute to Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, who had passed away during the offseason. - [Broadcaster] All the charm still exists in Wrigley Field. And being on the field today
and talking with the players you look up at the scoreboard and it's great. It adds an element that I think this place needed. - And I think when fans experienced
how we programmed those boards I think they felt like we honored Wrigley Field and we honored the experience. - Just as important, the video boards
immediately increased revenues, which could be reinvested
in the Major League roster. - So, more resources, more scouts. More resources, more technology. More resources, more payroll. All those things will add
to performance on the field. - In phase two of the 1060 Project,
renovations would not just improve the ballpark, they'd improve the team. ♪ [music] ♪ - One of the things that
I don't think we had a full appreciation for when we took control of the team was just how bad the player facilities really were. We had the worst facilities in baseball. - Perhaps no part of Wrigley Field
needed an upgrade more than the team's infamous clubhouse. - It was comically bad, like, jaw-droppingly bad. You'd have to see it to believe it. It looked like seventh grade junior
varsity at a bad school. - It was worse than my high school locker room,
my high school girls' locker room, it was worse. - It had maybe 5% of the things
that major league players would need to effectively get themselves ready to play and compete in a big league game. So, for example, there was no batting cage area. So when pinch hitters would need to get loose and get ready to go out in the game,
people sprung into action. You know, the hitting coach would come down,
put a tee down in the middle of the clubhouse. The clubhouse guy would grab some plywood,
put it over the TV, another clubbie would come down drop the net. And you'd have, you know,
a pinch hitter getting ready taking swings off a tee into a net in the middle of the clubhouse,
while other guys are at their locker, like, ducking and trying to get out of the way. It was comical. - It's going to be hard to convince players that this is where they want to be when the clubhouse looked like it did. - A new clubhouse would be the crown jewel of phase two of the 1060 Project. - Tom just put out a mandate that this is extremely important
and we want you guys to really have everything that you could ever want which basically came to reality
once they made the big decision to dig. - While the team plays its 2015 season in
Wrigley Field, the big dig is underway. Accommodating the Cubs wish list
would require the 1060 Project team to think outside the box, and outside the park. The clubhouse would be relocated here, underground, between the ballpark
and Clark Street, with the help of some very careful engineering. - We went through about
19 different basement plans. That was all dictated by, how deep can we go next to this 100-year-old park That was all dictated by, how deep can we go next to this 100-year-old park without risking structural failure? - When the glaciers receded
to create the Great Lakes what they left behind
was some beautiful beach sand, and that's what Wrigley is built on. So if you're thinking about digging
down 30 feet to create the clubhouse, you're also going to be
digging right through sand. - [Michael] We were going down to a depth that was going to require us
to make sure we weren't allowing the ballpark to slide into the hole. That wouldn't have been good. - Engineers fortified the area by
utilizing a unique construction method. - We used a technique called
top down construction. We put a floor slab at ground and then we went below and mined out the existing soil below that. - We literally had mining equipment come in. When you look at the complexity of the columns and all of the bracing for that,
it's pretty phenomenal. - With stability ensured, the build out began
on the new 30,000 square foot space which would be second in size only to the Yankees new clubhouse. The architects designed a round clubhouse,
which they'd never seen before in sports. - Like the Knights of the Round Table all people around a circle are equals and there are no corners and no cliques. Ultimately, it brings them back together
as a team and fosters connections. - The clubhouse would be 60'6" in diameter just like the distance from home plate
to the pitching rubber. And every detail would be considered. There was just one little hiccup along the way. - [Broadcaster] Swing and a miss.
Cubs win. Cubs win. - The Cubs were overachieving on the field. - The Cubs are on to the
National League Championship Series. - While great for fans and players the team's unexpected postseason run
in 2015 wasn't accounted for in the 1060 Project's schedule. - That ball is drilled to center field. - Being a lifelong Cub fan,
the idea of playing baseball in October was not a typical thing. So we were always planning the
offseason work as a 26-week exercise. - If we're winning, we'll figure out the rest. Now, that said, I wasn't responsible for the schedule, other people were. So it's easy for me to say that. - As a project manager, it probably
would have been a normal thing to sort of root against the Cubs to say,
"Don't make the playoffs. Not this year." But I was a Cub fan. That was never going to happen. - Contractors would now have
three fewer weeks to finish phase two. They worked down to the wire,
delivering the new clubhouse just before the 2016 home opener. Rather than wait until game day Cubs players decided to take a sneak peek one day earlier than scheduled. - I remember, like, holding the door for them and it was a stampede of guys running through. The reaction was incredible. It reminded those of us with kids
of Christmas morning where, like, your kids go
tear open their presents. - [Player] This is unbelievable. Bro, this is sick. - What the players found was arguably
the best facility in all of baseball. - A massive training room with some PT space there, so we didn't need to send players out. And then enough room
for all the amenities that typically players have to
go outside the clubhouse for. Two different kinds of saunas, you know,
infrared sauna, typical wet sauna. A big enough room so the training room can handle 10 different players at once and a couple players rehabbing,
so they don't have to go off site. The strength and conditioning room, player lounge designed by the players with every toy you can possibly imagine
to get them here early. You know, the players
sometimes don't get enough sleep with all the day games, so a sleep room,
and not just any sleep room but one that's designed by a sleep expert,
with soundproof walls, and the right shade of blue on the walls,
and the right kind of lighting, and the right mattresses, and on, and on, and on. - Every amenity on the players' wish list
had been granted all the way down to their own barber shop. - I was walking Justin Grimm around and he saw the barber's pool, and he goes, "Man, no way. Look at that. We got our own dentist chair here." And the players were giving
him a hard time about that. - We had that moment when they all came in and they were just like, wow. And to get that kind of reaction,
that was really great. - The 2016 Cubs would go on
to christen their new clubhouse with a season for the history books. According to Theo, some credit is owed
to the clubhouse itself which allowed Kyle Schwarber to rehab from his knee injury close to the team. - It was one of the most diligent and tenacious rehabs I've ever seen. Because we had the new training room
and the new rehab space he was able to get
state of the art rehabilitation done while being around the big league team,
really being part of the team. He never lost connection with his teammates and he'd always tell them like, "Hey, let's get in the playoffs.
Let's go to the World Series. I'm coming back." And certainly, I think
but for the new clubhouse, he would have taken a different path
with his rehab. - [Broadcaster] Hard hit.
Base hit. - Schwarber would return just in time to help the Cubs win the 2016 World Series. - The Cubs win the World Series! - 2016 will always be remembered as the year the Cubs broke their World Series curse. But back in 2012,
while renovations were in development a plan was floated that would have
added a footnote to history. - It would have saved us about 100 million by playing one season outside of Wrigley. And we thought, okay,
the year to play elsewhere is 2016. Boy, how that would have changed our lives,
had we tried to play that season, the historic season, somewhere else. - Instead, crowds flocked to
Wrigley Field to celebrate. Fans turned the walls of the ballpark
into a memorial writing messages to family members
who didn't live to see the Cubs win the World Series. By saving the ballpark,
the Cubs were preserving this link between the past and present. Next, they turn their focus
to ensuring Wrigley Field's future. ♪ [music] ♪ - All buildings, they all have a story to tell. And the key is to figure out
what is that story and how are we able to continue that story for today and for the future. - Despite fans' affection for the ballpark,
not everything at Wrigley Field was beloved. There were cut rate concessions, clogged concourses, premium spaces that were anything but, and yes, a wee shortage of facilities. - And the fact that fans would come to Wrigley even though the facilities
had fallen into such disrepair, I think previous ownership
took advantage of the fans in a sense. - So in the final phases of the 1060 Project the Cubs would focus on improving the fan experience with modern features. Timeless didn't need to mean outdated. - We had been promising to our fans for years that it was going to get better, that we were going to deliver
that experience that they deserved. And so it was important that we get it right. ♪ [music] ♪ - When it was built in 1914, Wrigley Field was never expected to hold 40,000 fans. The lower level concourse was
the main artery through the ballpark. And on game day, it
rivaled Chicago's worst traffic jam. - If you wanted to get something to eat or drink or you wanted to go to the restroom, almost all of that
was down on the main concourse. And so that forced, you know,
40,000 people into the main concourse. One of the things that was
really important to us in the design was allowing the ballpark
to breathe a little bit. - And that would require the most precious resource in all of Wrigley Field, space. - One of the great challenges in renovating
Wrigley Field was our footprint. When you look at new facilities
that are built with no limitation they're typically built on 13 to 15 acres. We operate on 8 acres,
8 sacred acres, but just eight acres. - And so we had to be really creative
and kind of think outside the box of what you would normally do if you were building
a brand new ballpark out in the suburbs. - We had a woodworker's office,
we had an electrician's office, we had a plumber's office. Obviously, the players took up some space. And the question was,
can we move them outside the building so that we can dedicate
all the space inside the building to principally three things. One is restrooms, especially for women,
the second is concessions, and the third was premium space for our fans. - In addition to reallocating space within the ball
park, the Cubs would build beyond it. - We had to come up with a creative solution to add
more square footage, add more restrooms, and add more concessions to the upper level. - Six new patios were installed to create an upper level concourse which relieved traffic in the lower level while providing unexpected
views of the city. Then they got to work below the ballpark. - We excavated dirt under the seating bowl and we walked into the space
and said, there's space under there. We could tuck in, you know,
a club into that space. - Three clubs underground and one elevated would bring a new premium experience. But to keep things true to Wrigley Field, the Cubs urged fans to leave
the clubs once a game began. - We want to create the club environment that's really compelling until the game starts, and then encourage people to get back in their seats because that's where the magic happens. - By expanding above and below the ballpark the experience of being inside Wrigley Field
remained largely untouched. - One of the driving themes of everything we did during the 1060 Project was, this has to be the
ballpark your grandfather recognized. And frankly, when you walk into our bowl,
it looks pretty much like it's always looked. ♪ [music] ♪ - And outside the park,
renovations were restoring some of what Wrigley Field had lost. Here, a long overdue makeover was
being given to the marquee. - It's sort of a microcosm of the project,
in that it's this historic object. And it itself had to
be modernized, preserved, and reapplied. - Its internal structure and
lighting components were updated while the front and back
of the marquee were touched up to bring back their luster. - What we ended up with was
the marquee that everybody remembers. - And just below the marquee,
the facade at Clark and Addison was getting its own historic facelift. - In the 50s and then into the 60s,
they began to peel things off, and there was a desire to bring that back. And the key elements of that really were these very pretty little ticket booths. And the key elements of that really were these very pretty little ticket booths. - The ticket booths would be restored to look as they did during their glory years in the 1930s. - From the clay terra cotta tile to the brick banding,
the fan ornamental iron work and the fencing,
just all the subtle details. You know, it really tells
the story of the ballpark. - For fans that have been gone
for a while and they come back they're blown away by
how we've restored the ballpark and brought it back to
its charm of the late 30s. - But beyond the restored features,
a new addition was generating the most buzz. - Wrigley Field has always been great on a warm sunny day when the Cubs are in town. What was missing was,
what is it on a non-game day? And what is it in the winter? And I was thinking, like,
why can't we be the town square? - Between Clark Street and Wrigley Field,
where there was once a parking lot, there would now be a park. A plaza called Gallagher Way,
opened to the public during the final phase of renovations. - To see people, like, bringing a picnic,
and kids running around, a parent and a child
throwing the ball around, to use that space for the community, for wiggle worms, or farmers markets,
or an ice skating rink. It makes the neighborhood itself,
I hope, a little more vibrant to the people that already live here. - Wrigley Field has become a destination for the
neighborhood 365 days a year delivering on a promise the Ricketts made
when they first bought the team. - There's no question with Gallagher Way,
and open spaces and leisurely strolls
on a non-Cub game, it's exciting. The Cubs are a major economic force in the city and a major economic driver
for the neighborhood. There's a lot of respect there. - We've now defined the ballpark
as something that is a year round place
where you can go with your family, and I'm just really proud of it. ♪ [music] ♪ - After five eventful years
and more than $750 million construction on the 1060 Project
finished in 2019. More than $90 million in contracts
went to minority and women-owned businesses and 35% of the workforce was made up
of minority tradespeople. No matter their background,
one thing was certain everyone wanted to be a part of the story
that was happening at Wrigley Field. - The workers on this project,
most of them Cub fans, they really wanted to be part of history, they wanted to say to their
children, "Hey, dad, built that." It's Wrigley Field, there's a level
of pride that comes with that. - The project team fortified a 100-year-old ballpark on the verge of disrepair and then modernized it
to last for the next 100 years. But the Cubs were not only restoring
brick, concrete, and steel they were preserving generations
of memories as well. Because the ballpark is a living history, a place where people are reminded
that baseball is America's pastime, that a game can inspire movements, and that a team can define our virtues
and instill pride in us. - We see ourselves as
stewards and custodians of Wrigley Field and wanting to leave that legacy played a role in every moment of every part of every thought we had. - The success of the project was a team effort. And certainly, I think
everyone that worked on the project did it with some piece of pride in them that they were saving the most
beautiful ballpark in the world. - That feeling that you got when you were a kid and you came to your first game, is the same as you coming to a game today. We're still playing baseball, there's still the ivy, and there's still the smell
of popcorn and beer in the air. It's still Wrigley Field. - It's remarkably special. Every person coming to Wrigley would say, "Wow, it looks like
it's always been part of Wrigley Field." And I thought that was
the greatest compliment because you're talking about real significant changes that really transformed the fans' experience
and transformed the players' experience. - You had masons
working to save the historic brick, arborists working to save the ivy, steel workers climbing up
on steel beams in the winter, electricians and plumbers, engineers and architects, lawyers. You were all bound together by one thing and
it was the love of Wrigley Field. And everyone was throwing their lot in
to try and help save it. - I saw the plans,
I knew what we were trying to do but I don't think I really
understood just what it would mean. Restoring it to what it was and making it better, and all the while not losing
that essence of Wrigley Field that makes it so special. It has exceeded my expectations. - I've been coming to baseball games
at Wrigley Field since I was 17 and I still get that same feeling. It is the best place to watch baseball, full stop. And on a beautiful sunny day
when you walk into Wrigley Field it's the best place on Earth. ♪ [music] ♪
