Crew’s Lower.com Field given design award by group
Lower.com Field, home of the Columbus Crew, has been awarded this year’s Columbus Landmarks’ James B. Recchie Design Award for urban design.
HNTB, a national infrastructure solutions firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, with offices locally Downtown, and MKSK, a planning, urban design and landscape architect firm also located Downtown, designed the 20,371seat stadium, which was built at a cost of $313.9 million. The facility hosted its first Crew game on July 3.
The three-member Columbus Landmarks jury – Christie Angel, president and CEO of YWCA Columbus; Dorothee Imbert, director of Ohio State’s Knowlton School of Architecture and a professor of landscape architecture; and Michael Paplow, vice president and principal at FMS Architects – cited the 3,356 standing seats in the Nordecke at one end of the stadium, and the 220,000-square foot canopy designed to keep noise in as key factors in its decision.
The jury also cited the public spaces outside the gates, and the connection to the city with the Olentangy bike trail and a public plaza at the stadium’s southeast corner that serves as an entrance to the field.
The award was announced Wednesday during a brief ceremony at the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Main Library Downtown.
The other finalists were Budd Dairy, located at 1086 N. 4th St. in Italian Village; the Mirror Lake District at Ohio State; the Rise Brands headquarters at 134 E. Long St. Downtown; and The Gravity project at 500 W. Broad St. in Franklinton. mferench@dispatch.com @Markferenchik