Is Chase Field showing its age? And if it is, do the Arizona Diamondbacks care?

Aug 11, 2022; Phoenix, Ariz., USA; The Arizona Diamondbacks take on the Pittsburgh Pirates at Chase Field.
Aug 11, 2022; Phoenix, Ariz., USA; The Arizona Diamondbacks take on the Pittsburgh Pirates at Chase Field.

Like any other 24-year-old building that hasn’t undergone major renovation, Chase Field has shown its age this season.

The retractable roof hasn’t worked as intended all summer. Multiple lights on the out-of-town scoreboards have been burned out for years. There have been issues with elevators and escalators. Sections of the lineup boards appeared blacked out at times. Fans in the upper deck have complained about a lack of air conditioning. It took a few weeks to repair a broken door near the team shop. And at one game in late July, the panels in center field were stuck open and every scoreboard in the building went dark.

Chase Field might not be falling apart, but collectively those anecdotes suggest the building isn’t being given tender loving care. Or much care at all.

And that leads to conspiratorial theories that the Diamondbacks, who are responsible for the building’s upkeep, aren’t keeping it up because they either want everyone to see how badly they need a new stadium, or they don’t want to sink money into a place they plan to leave sometime in the next few years, or they just don’t want to spend the money.

The Diamondbacks deny all of that and say they’ve tried to address all the above issues in a timely manner.

“Sometimes these things look worse than they really are,” said Jaci Brown, the team’s senior vice president of communications and content.

Under a Chase Field roof that cannot be opened with fans in the venue, Diamondbacks starting pitcher Merrill Kelly takes the field to face the San Francisco Giants on July 6.
Under a Chase Field roof that cannot be opened with fans in the venue, Diamondbacks starting pitcher Merrill Kelly takes the field to face the San Francisco Giants on July 6.

For instance, she said, the problem with the center field panels was a bad fuse that cost $15 to replace. The challenge was in diagnosing the problem. And elevator repair companies are backed up with work, she said, which delayed repairs.

An inspection of the retractable roof before the season detected problems with the integrity of the cables used to open and close it. The cables need replacing and the roof has to be opened and closed when no fans are in the building. There was some hope it could be repaired while the team was out of town, but getting the necessary parts has been difficult because of supply-chain issues, Brown said.

And the bulbs that are burned out on the out-of-town scoreboard? Replacement bulbs are no longer available.

All of the repairs are the responsibility of the Diamondbacks, not the Maricopa County Stadium District, which owns Chase Field. That was part of a settlement reached in May of 2018, ending a lawsuit in which the Diamondbacks demanded the county pay up to $185 million in stadium upgrades.

The Diamondbacks keep all revenue generated in connection to the use of the stadium and gained immediate access to a $13.5 million repair fund that could possibly grow over the next few years.

As of March, the Diamondbacks had spent $5.2 million on repairs, and there was almost $12 million in the reserve fund, according to quarterly reports the teams is required to make to the county.

Six years ago, Diamondbacks President and CEO Derrick Hall told the county that Chase Field would need almost $8 million in renovations by the end of the 2018-19 off-season.

Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall has talked in the past about needing to get serious about the future of Chase Field.
Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall has talked in the past about needing to get serious about the future of Chase Field.

The team’s lease at Chase Field runs through 2027, but the settlement allows it to leave after this season with no penalty for another site in Maricopa County. But there’s no danger of that because the Diamondbacks have no place to go.

At a time when the Coyotes are negotiating with Tempe about building an arena, and when the Footprint Center, the home of the Suns, and State Farm Stadium, the Cardinals home, have been recently upgraded, the Diamondbacks have made no progress in solidifying their stadium plans.

The Diamondbacks' future at Chase Field is coming to a crossroads faced by any long-time homeowner: Stay and renovate, or go? But unlike the television show “Love It or List It,” they don’t have the option of seeing the final cost of the renovated place, or what it would look like, before deciding.

If the team moves to a stadium on tribal land within the county before 2027, it’s responsible for paying taxes to the county equal to what it does at Chase Field. Moving outside the county would cost the Diamondbacks between $5 million and $25 million, depending on how many years are left on the lease.

A year ago, the state legislature passed a bill allowing the Diamondbacks to create a theme park district and tack a 9 percent surcharge on sales within the district.

Hall has expressed reluctance to ask the team’s best fans, the ones who attend games, to pay even more.

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At the beginning of this season, Hall said it was time to get into “high gear” in securing long-term accommodations for the Diamondbacks.

We have to wait to find out what “high gear” looks like. Brown said Hall would address these issues at some point this off-season, not right now.

In the meantime, if you attend a game at Chase Field and can’t make out a score out on the out-of-town scoreboards, just acknowledge we’re in the 21st century and ask Siri.

Reach Kent Somers at Kent.Somers@gannett.com. Follow him on twitter @kentsomers. Hear Somers every Monday at 7:30 a.m. on The Drive with Jody Oehler on Fox Sports 910 AM.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Love it or leave it? Diamondbacks must make decision about Chase Field