Schaumburg Boomers following up championship with renovations to Wintrust Field
The Schaumburg Boomers clinched their fourth Frontier League championship this week, and one of their rewards will be a seven-part renovation this offseason at their home stadium - the village-owned Wintrust Field.
The $1.04 million approved for the work largely will be covered by the $1 million the Schaumburg Park District paid in late 2019 to relinquish its half ownership of the then 20-year-old baseball park.
Schaumburg Facilities Division Manager Amanda Stuber said the seven projects are the first of nine prioritized during a recent revision of a March 2020 plan for 14 upgrades over a number of years. The total cost of the work was then projected at $3.5 million.
Though all work was postponed by the pandemic, the goal now as it was then is to enhance the fan experience, Stuber said.
While the stadium is fully owned by the village of Schaumburg, all the project decisions were made in collaboration with the Boomers, which lease the facility, she said.
The upcoming work includes creating four entirely outdoor suites on the concourse level by flattening areas of the top three rows of seats. Four more of these outdoor suites could be built later.
Other work includes replacing the concourse floor, renovating the restrooms on the upper suite level, replacing the window walls of both the Schaumburg Club and Jim Beam Club, replacing the deteriorating trees beyond center field with a screen to protect batters' sightline on pitches, and recoating the plaza walkway outside the main entrance, along with installing newly required bollards there.
The village approved a bollard requirement after a man drove an SUV into Woodfield Mall in September 2019 through the then unprotected entrance of the Sears store.
Schaumburg trustees have awarded the offseason renovation work to F.H. Paschen, a co-op vendor contracted with the National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance. The alliance uses predetermined pricing that has already been competitively bid out for municipalities and other government agencies.