Sean Aronson, St. Paul Saints, On CHS Field Being Named 'Greenest New Stadium of 2015'

GreenSportsBlog announced its Best and Worst of Green-Sports, 2015 list on Thursday. Among the “Bests” was CHS Field, the new über-green, 7,000 seat home of minor league baseball’s St. Paul (MN) Saints, named as the year’s Greenest New Stadium. This designation demonstrates that the Saints made good on its commitment to build the “Greenest Stadium in America.” GSB spoke with Sean Aronson, Director of Media/Broadcast Relations for the Saints, to get his and the club’s reaction to winning the award.

GreenSportsBlog: Congratulations to you and the Saints organization on CHS Field winning the Greenest New Stadium of 2015 designation! What does it mean to the club?
Sean Aronson: On behalf of the Saints, I’d like to thank GreenSportsBlog for this award. We are honored. I mean, we’re a small, independent minor league club with a 7,000 seat stadium. To win over the many great, green big stadium and arena projects is truly humbling. It means a lot to not only the Saints, the architects and the builders, but also we had incredible support from the State of Minnesota, the city government here in St. Paul and the community itself to build the Greenest Stadium in the US.

Sean Aronson, Director, Media/Broadcast Relations, St. Paul Saints. (Photo credit: St. Paul Saints)

GSB: Talk a bit about the community and its greenness…
SA: …Lower St. Paul, where we are located, is an historic, green-conscious neighborhood and so sustainability had be central to the CHS Field project. We took a page or two out of Xcel Energy Center’s (home of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild) green playbook when designing and building our stadium and then looked to take green stadium building to the next level.
GSB: How did you do that?
SA: By reusing nearly all of a nearby abandoned warehouse building to construct CHS Field, by becoming the first US stadium to reuse rainwater for field irrigation…We also made a concerted effort to be sustainable in ways beyond “green.” For example the Saints went well beyond the minimum requirements for wheelchair accessible and semi-ambulatory accessible seating.
GSB: That’s terrific. How has the community reacted?
SA: The fans really appreciate that we followed through on our promise to make CHS Field “The Greenest Stadium in America”
GSB: What would’ve happened if you didn’t make good on that promise?
SA: Well, we liked to say around the office that “we’re either going to build ‘The Greenest Stadium in America’ or we’re going to have to paint the whole place green to fulfill that promise.” Let’s just say never gave a thought to stocking up on green paint!
GSB: I guess Home Depot’s or Lowe’s loss is the environment’s and the community’s gain. Congratulations again on building the Greenest New Stadium of 2015.