I remember hearing last year that the club was thinking of expanding the Red Loft to make it bigger for this season. Any word on whether this happened? I liked the addition of the Miller Lite Scoreboard Walk.
Also I wish they'd hurry up with finishing construction of the bars/restaurants/shops/etc outside the park soon.
Yes, they are expanding the Red Loft. That work is in progress. In terms of bars and restaurants around the area, that has to come in a natural order of progression. It is important to remember that the stadium was not only not plopped into an existing neighborhood but into an area that was being leveled to make way for a completely new neighborhood. That is very comprehensively planned, documented very well on jdland, and involves a combination of new construction, the complete remodeling of some existing buildings in and around the navy yard, and the building of a combination of parks and waterfront space.
All of that takes time. And you need to have buildings finished before tenants (businesses) can move in, and other buildings and townhomes finished before renters and owners move in that support those businesses. There has to be enough in place to support those types of establishments, and they are the last things that usually go in as they are the hardest to make work. Until there are businesses leasing space and residents occupying the condos, apartments, and houses, the support businesses won't have any customers. And none of that can even occur until the buildings themselves are completed. So that is still a year or two away before we really see some of that start to happen, and it is probably 3 to 5 before things are really mature.
In the mean time, people will have to do what all the residents of the surrounding neighborhood do who walk to and from the game - walk the ten minutes it takes to any number of stretches of existing bars and restaurants.
