Citizens Bank Park is a baseball stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Home to Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies, the stadium opened April 3, 2004.
- Venue
- Citizens Bank Park
- Town
- Philadelphia, US
- Capacity
- 43,651
Citizens Bank Park is a baseball stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Home to Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies, the stadium opened April 3, 2004. The 42,901-seat ballpark was built to replace the 33-year-old Veterans Stadium, a multipurpose football and baseball facility that was demolished in 2004. Citizens Bank Park features a natural grass-and-dirt playing field and Philadelphia-style food stands that serve cheesesteak sandwiches, hoagies, Tastykakes, soft pretzels, Yards and Yuengling beer, and other regional specialties. The ballpark is named after Citizens Bank, N.A.. It sits on the northeast corner of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, which includes Lincoln Financial Field, Xfinity Mobile Arena, and Stateside Live!, a dining and entertainment venue which often serves as a media hub for various live broadcasts. In 1999, the owners of the Phillies and the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL joined their western Pennsylvania counterparts, the owners of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Steelers, in asking state and local governments to replace Veterans Stadium and Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh with separate baseball and football stadiums. Pressure for new Philadelphia stadiums increased after a railing collapsed at "The Vet" during the 1998 Army-Navy Game, injuring eight cadets. The Pirates owners threatened to leave Pittsburgh in 1997, helping to convince the state legislature to approve funding for the four proposed stadiums. With their architectural plans already in place, Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh approved the pacts swiftly. Still, debate among Philadelphia's city leaders continued into 2001, when Pittsburgh opened its stadiums (PNC Park for the Pirates and Heinz Field for the Steelers). The Eagles ultimately agreed to the site of a former food warehouse slightly southeast of Veterans Stadium. Lincoln Financial Field celebrated its grand opening in August 2003. The Phillies originally sought to build a