Steeling home

by Joseph M. Ales Jr., Ph.D., P.E. and Justin Barton, P.E.

From the June 2010 issue of Modern Steel Construction

"The 40,000-seat open-air Target Field is the new home of the Minnesota Twins baseball club. This architecturally pleasing and structurally complex ballpark has taken full advantage of the versatility and strength of structural steel. Designed and built to fit seemlessly into a small and highly constrained site, the baseball park is located on the west edge of downtown Minneapolis, just across Interstate 394 from Target Center, home of the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team. One of the reasons for choosing this site was the large amount of support infrastructure already in place. This includes three large parking structures, an extended light rail running through downtown and a new heavy-rail line going to Northern Minnesota that terminates at the ballpark.."