DES MOINES, Iowa — During Monday’s Des Moines City Council meeting leaders at Principal Park were given the thumbs up to move forward with a $1.3 million renovation project.

The changes include moving the home and visitor bullpens off the right and left field line and into new areas that will be built into the existing seating bowl. The changes adhere to the standard practice in new baseball stadiums in relocating the bullpens off of the playing field for safety reasons. The only issue was finding the space, and it ended up costing some seats.

“Now, removing the bullpens off of the field, in order to do that we had to take seats out and push the bullpens into the grandstand, we’re going to eliminate about 700 seats. Any [ballpark] that is younger than us certainly has it pretty much in place, mostly in the outfield, we just don’t have the luxury of doing that, so everything will have to be within the confines of the ballpark,” said Sam Bernabe, President and General Manager of the Iowa Cubs.

Bernabe said despite the seats lost, there are still plenty of seats for fans, and the change even opens up bullpen-style premium seating for fan interaction.

Bernabe says the plan is to have construction be done during the off season, and have the new bullpens ready to go for the start of the 2026 season.

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