When it was completed... Harbor Park was a massive Triple-A stadium, well over International League standards and built to a capacity of 12,067. HOK Sport (today known as Populous) had come through and created something truly special for the city Norfolk. With its open grandstand behind the plate and two individually roofed grandstands down the 1st and 3rd baseline... the ballpark actually pays tribute to the setup that was old "Met Park". The grandstand behind home plate however was not orange or octagonal and shaped like a spaceship. It is subtle... just lightly beige to set off the sea of blue seating and green grass. (Thank you Populous for not filling this ballpark with your typical dark green nearly colorless seating. The soft blue seating lets this ballpark truly shine). It doesn't "break ground" architecturally because it doesn't have to. It's nautical views do that. It is simple and classic and makes the most that it can for the price. Harbor Park is after all one of the most "affordable ballparks of all time"... at just $16 million dollars. (Compare that to the Las Vegas 51's who move to $150 million Summerland Ballpark in 2019). And... they certainly didn't cut corners on seating capacity. This ballpark is simply enormous. The question is ... why was Harbor Park built to exactly double the size of its predecessor Met Park (6,200 seating capacity). The answer may surprise you...