Upgrades coming to Oriole’s Camden Yards

Article posted by Coliseum, January 29^th, 2025

Image: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Keith Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0

Maryland State’s Board of Public Works has approved a Maryland Stadium Authority financing plan that paves the way for $135 million in renovations to Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

MSN said the upgrades will be the first in a multi-round, $400 million renovation project funded by the state.

Improvements to the videoboard and sound system are expected ahead of the 2026 season, with a temporary sound system upgrade coming this season, according to Orioles spokesperson Jennifer Grondahl.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards, commonly known as Camden Yards, is a baseball stadium in Baltimore, Maryland (US). It is the ballpark of Major League Baseball’s (MLB’s) Baltimore Orioles and the first of the “retro” major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore (US). The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League East Division.

Oriole Park’s control room and the chiller plant, which cools the Camden Yards complex, will also be among the renovations.

The improvements will allow the stadium authority and the Orioles “to continue to provide the kind of excellent stadium experience that people have come to expect,” Michael Frenz, the authority’s executive director, told the Board of Public Works.

In addition to upcoming renovations, the left-field wall, which was moved farther from home plate after the 2021 season, will be adjusted again this offseason. The Orioles will pay for that change.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore said during the Board of Public Works meeting, “Those who attend a lot of Orioles games, as I do, we cannot wait for the revamped sound system.”

After a drawn-out saga that spanned multiple governors, the Orioles and the state agreed to a lease extension in December 2023. That agreement guaranteed the ballclub would remain at Oriole Park for 15 more years, until 2038.

If the state and the Orioles agree on a deal allowing the team to develop public land around Oriole Park — which new Orioles owner David Rubenstein said he intends to do — the lease would become a 30-year agreement, lasting until 2053, and likely unlock another $200 million.

During the stadium authority meeting, Moore cited that lease extension that he said would keep the Orioles in town “for the next 30 years.”

Moore said of the upcoming renovations, “It marks an incredibly important moment for the state’s continued partnership with our beloved Baltimore Orioles.”

Populous, a globally-recognized sports architecture firm, was chosen last year to lead the design team that will make hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of capital improvements to Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

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