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Shopping Centers Today -> January 2006
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SPORTING CHANCE
Ron Turner says sports and retail venues play together well
By Dakota Smith
Asking Ron Turner about his favorite sports teams, one would expect to hear the Lakers, the Yankees or the 49ers mentioned. After all, Turner, a pioneer in sports architecture, helped design those teams’ arenas or stadiums in his 30-plus years in the business.
Nope. Turner’s favorite team is the University of Kansas Jayhawks. “My passion is college basketball,” said Turner, who joined the Los Angeles office of architecture firm RTKL Associates in August as vice president of stadium and arena design.
Some would consider Turner’s allegiance to the University of Kansas, his alma mater, admirable, given that he has designed arenas for some of the biggest professional teams around.
In fact, his résumé lists not only arenas and stadiums for professional and collegiate teams, but also convention centers and even some overseas projects, such as Saitama (Japan) Dome. Considered the most technologically advanced arena in the world, the Saitama Dome is also unquestionably an efficient way to deal with high land costs. The facility converts from a 10,000-seat hockey arena into a 30,000-seat soccer venue, with hidden seats appearing at the push of a button.
“He really does live and breathe the world of sports architecture,” said Jonathan Emmett, an RTKL principal and a member of Turner’s team who has worked with him for the past 13 years at other firms.
In his new position at RTKL, which is known for such award-winning retail centers as The Streets at Southpoint, in Durham, N.C., and Veso Mare, in Patras, Greece, the 58-year-old Turner will oversee design of sports facilities that incorporate retail, entertainment and housing. And these will be a far cry from the stadiums of the 1970s, when Turner was getting started in architecture in his native Kansas City, Mo.
Back then, stadiums (nicknamed “donuts” because of their design) were placed in dumpy parking lots miles from city centers. Fans drove to a game, parked, and left when the game was over. Walking downtown to an open-air baseball stadium — something Seattle Mariners fans can do with Safeco Field, which Turner designed in 1999 — was hardly the norm. And sitting in a luxury suite ordering cocktail service and watching a basketball game, as fans do at the Quicken Loans Arena (formerly Gund Arena), in Cleveland, which Turner designed in 1992, was unheard of.
“Sports architecture was always thought of as a stand-alone group,” said Emmett. “But Ron understood that it was about integrating the worlds of sports, entertainment, retail — about merging them all together.”
Falling into sports architecture was simply happenstance, Turner says. He took his first architecture job at Divine James Labinski Myers, a now-defunct architecture firm in his hometown. One of his first designs was the renovation of Yankee Stadium in the early 1970s, which involved redesigning the offices, training suites and clubhouse.
“I knew I wanted to be an architect, but I didn’t specifically target arenas and stadiums as what I wanted to do,” he said. “But once I started working with the Yankees, I really enjoyed it, and never really looked back.”
At that time sports architecture was on the cusp of change, says Turner. Such firms as Kivett & Myers, also based in Kansas City, were transforming the stadium concept with innovative facilities such as football’s Arrowhead Stadium, built in 1972 in Kansas City, and baseball’s adjacent Royals Stadium (today Kauffman Stadium), built the following year.
Before this development, most stadia were multipurpose but were not successfully serving any one purpose. This was the first attempt at creating sports-specific stadia on one site that could share infrastructure. Because Royals and Arrowhead were planned at the same time, it was a turning point in stadia design and introduced new planning theories. In one sense, this laid the groundwork for future master-planning to utilize the space between the attractions (although this particular development did little to address that). There are no shared concessions, although a single operator could work on the site. The infrastructure costs were lower than they would have been on two separate sites.
It helped that in the ’70s and ’80s the NFL and the NBA had cash to spend, thanks to growing television revenues. “My career started when the industry started changing its mind-set,” said Turner. “Suddenly, the football industry wanted all of its own stadiums, and then so did basketball.”
By 1988 Turner was working at another Kansas City firm. During his tenure there, he designed Bank One Ballpark, in Phoenix, the first U.S. baseball stadium with a retractable roof. Other notable Turner projects include Atlanta’s Olympic Stadium, which later became Turner Field, and the Keil Center, in St. Louis.
By the late ’90s, Turner was designing sports facilities that could function as full-service venues — places useful year-round for events ranging from ice-skating championships to rock concerts. He was also adding entertainment facilities to encourage fans to come early and socialize: bars, restaurants, premium club services and the like.
“A team isn’t going to win every game, it’s just not possible,” said Turner. “But win or lose, the fans should go home and say, ‘I had a great time.’ That became the mind-set of how I designed a facility.”
His designs also transformed city blocks. Turner designed the America West Arena, in Phoenix, a project that faced scrutiny from both city officials and developers.
“The idea was to let the city grow to the arena, which was very forward-thinking at the time,” he said. “But our thought was that if we do this, there will be other retail and entertainment things that will happen around it. And we were right.”
After leaving the Kansas City firm, Turner joined Michael Hallmark and Dan Meis at NBBJ, a Los Angeles-based architecture, design and branding firm, where they founded a sports architecture division in 1995. At NBBJ Turner designed not only Seattle’s Safeco Field, but also the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, and the Paul Brown Stadium, in Cincinnati.
And he continued to work with the NBA, as a consultant on the facility design of all-new basketball stadiums. After Sept. 11, 2001, Turner’s services as a security specialist were in even greater demand, and he continues to advise the NBA on safety.
In 2004 Turner and Meis left NBBJ to form their own sports architecture firm, Turner Meis + Associates. But the firm had a short life; Meis departed last year to become president of Los Angeles-based Nadel Architects, and Turner joined RTKL.
RTKL and Turner first came together in downtown Los Angeles. Turner was responsible for the design of the Staples Center, and RTKL was master-planning LA Live, a mixed-use entertainment district that surrounds the Staples Center. LA Live will add a hotel, a cinema and multiple stores around the arena, creating a true sports and entertainment district. RTKL is the architect on several components of the development.
Building retail around sports facilities is a relatively new trend, but it is one that Turner understands well, according to RTKL’s chairman, Paul Jacob. “When we begin talking to him, it was apparent that he understands that building an arena is about creating a district,” said Jacob. “Whether you fit in hotels or residential towers or retail, an arena can be the glue that holds everything together.”
Additionally, Turner is working on an arena in Perth, Australia. Overseas work may take him away from the home in Malibu, Calif., he shares with his wife, Kristin, but Turner says RTKL’s strong international reputation was an incentive in joining the firm.
Now a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Turner says he has been blessed in his career. But no matter how many stadiums he has designed, he says there is still nothing to match the feeling of opening day at a new sports venue. “I still get chills on opening days,” he said. “You’re giving back, helping people get away from their normal lives. It’s a real rush.”
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