The Best Seats
In The House

In what is often referred to as Sarnia’s premier baseball park is also its oldest. Dating back to the 1950s, the baseball diamond has long served the community as a hub for local baseball serving as a home diamond for the Sarnia Braves as well as other local teams.

Following the completion of a new set of dugouts built in 2014, plans were set in motion to complete the redesign in the years following. With plans set to build around the new dugouts, demolition on the site began in 2017, with the rebuild slated for 2018.

The existing 600-seat bleachers were in disrepair, so included in the rebuilding operation was a new grandstand seating system complete with customized accessibility ramps, viewing platforms and more. Change rooms, a new concession area, netting barrier, landscape design and baseball field backstop were all also part of the scope of work for the historic athletic field.

From where we sit, there is nothing better than witnessing scores of spectators rising from their seats to cheer on their local sports team. Having been involved in the sports infrastructure and equipment industry for over 40 years now, nothing makes us more excited than a well-planned athletic space or outdoor sports field. While we now support all facets of athletic equipment and the design process, our hearts are deeply rooted in the very seating that accommodates a crowd of rabid fans. Having designed bleachers and grandstands of all shapes and sizes over the years, we continue to pay attention to what facility owners and operators need and expect from their sideline seating.

As such, nothing ruins a good day at the field more than a mishap on the bleachers due to a lack of care and maintenance. With this in mind, we wanted to touch on a few easy tips for keeping your bleacher seating in game-day condition for many years to come.

Nestled smack dab in the middle of the Rocky Mountains lies historic Bozeman, located in the southwest portion of the great state of Montana. While not the most populous city in the state, Bozeman does serve as home to the state’s largest university and flagship campus of the Montana State University System, Montana State University (MSU).

With enrolment of roughly 17,000 students, MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 51 fields, master’s degrees in 41 fields and doctoral degrees in 18 fields spread across its nine colleges. Over the past decade, the school has enjoyed monumental growth in both enrolment with major construction and renovation projects including a new Animal Bioscience Building and a major renovation to Gaines Hall.

When it comes to indoor bleacher seating, the options can be endless and the choice of product selected ultimately depends on the requirements of each individual facility.

In the case of simple auxiliary seating, our smaller tip and roll bleachers are typically the best choice, allowing facility operators to quickly and easily move and place these small bleachers on an as-needed basis.

When accommodation for more spectators is required in limited spaces such as gymnasiums, our telescopic bleachers quickly become the best choice. Available in a number of configurations and sizes, our Kodiak 2400 series solves the issue of providing ample seating in a limited space. From elementary schools, to high schools, our most popular telescopic units are easily customized to fit most capacity requirements and available spaces but when the need arises for yet another level of indoor bleacher seating, nothing holds a candle to the Kodiak 3200 series systems.

Acting as the governing body of soccer in the United States Virgin Islands, the US Virgin Islands Soccer Association (USVISA) was founded in 1987 while becoming affiliated with CONCACAF in the same year. With headquarters in Christiansted on the picturesque island of St. Croix, the association eventually joined the ranks of FIFA, the official governing body of soccer worldwide, in 1998.

After participating in a successful FIFA-sanctioned project in Barbados, key stakeholders from the USVISA and FIFA once again contacted our team to begin the process of designing and installing some new bleacher seating in the Caribbean.

Similar in nature to the grandstands that were installed in Barbados, the USVISA was interested in two banks of grandstand bleachers to accommodate spectators at their home pitch known as Bethlehem Soccer Complex, which also serves as the head office of the USVISA.

If you have ever had the opportunity to observe a particularly large retractable bleacher system, there is likely little doubt in your mind as to the significant weight of one of these structures. Used in gymnasiums across Canada and the United States, these seating systems are space-saving solutions that are easily rolled out for use when the time or event calls for it.

These wonderfully engineered systems are undoubtedly helpful for various organizations, schools, universities, and public and private athletic facilities. While the majority of the larger versions of these structures are powered electrically and easily moved into the open and closed positions, some have been installed without these powerful motors and rely solely on human operation.

Situated in Kingston, Ontario, we were once again called upon by our esteemed partners and colleagues at Queen’s University.

In 2015, we were awarded the contract to take the lead on the revitalization and rebuilding of Richardson Stadium, a project that saw our team build out the entire stadium from the ground up. We designed and installed seating for 8,000 spectators in what is today known as one of Canada’s premiere collegiate athletic stadiums.

We’ve been fortunate to have a long-tenured relationship with this prestigious institution and continue to foster that relationship to this day.

We were recently called back to Richardson Stadium to address a serious health and safety issue on the outside of the stadium. Located beside the stadium is the school’s maintenance compound where staff members routinely work on keeping the grounds in tip top shape. With a large retaining wall just outside of the building, it was deemed unsafe by officials from the school and they were looking for an immediate solution to protect all staff and others who might use the walkway.

When many of us think of bleachers, we instantly envision large stadiums and grandstands filled with happy spectators. While this is true of many of the bleachers we design and construct, the truth is, we also create a number of smaller, or low-rise options.

With every organization, facility, and team coming to the table with their own unique needs and circumstances, it’s not hard to imagine that there really is no one-size-fits-all approach to bleacher seating. Generally speaking, many customers come to us looking to solve seating problems for anywhere from 20 to 100 spectators and this is where our low-rise options truly shine.

It’s happening at community centres, sports fields, colleges, universities, and municipal properties across Canada and the United States. No, we aren’t talking about petty theft such as stolen cell phones and other small objects of value; we are talking about large-scale theft of valuable athletic equipment.

A project that was nearly 12 months in the making brought us back to beautiful Montreal, Quebec. Working closely with key stakeholders from the English Montreal School Board which services 41 elementary schools, 17 high schools, 7 adult education facilities, 6 vocational schools and 11 outreach schools on the island of Montreal, we were invited to a tender for some new seating.

The public tender outlined the details for four sections of prospective retractable bleacher sections for JFK High School located just north of the city’s downtown core.

Instead of the original four banks of seating that were to measure 16’ in length and have four rows of seating, our team looked at another possible solution for the school. Thinking a little outside of the box, our team went to tender instead with a proposed bid that outlined just two banks of retractable bleachers that would measure 32’ and would feature four rows of seating.