GlobeStadiums

Aloha Stadium is a stadium located in Honolulu, (Hawaii). Currently Aloha Stadium is home to the University of Hawai’i Warrior football team (Western Athletic Conference, NCAA Division I-A). Since 1980 it has also been the site of the National Football League’s Pro Bowl. It also hosts numerous high school football games during the season, and serves as a venue for large concerts and events. A swap meet in the stadium’s parking lot every weekend draws large crowds. Aloha Stadium once served as home field for the AAA Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast League from 1975 to 1987 before the team moved to Colorado Springs.

Aloha Stadium can be reconfigured into various configurations for different sport venues and other purposes, and is the first stadium in the United States with this capability. Four movable sections, each 3.5 million tons and with a capacity of 7,000, can move using air cushions into a diamond configuration for baseball (also used for soccer), an oval for football, or a triangle for concerts. However, as of 2006, the Aloha Stadium Authority (the board which manages the stadium) was debating whether or not to permanently lock the stadium in either the football or baseball configuration, citing the high costs of maintaining the equipment used to move the stadium sections.

Located west of downtown Honolulu and 2 miles north of Honolulu International Airport, Aloha Stadium was built in 1975 at a cost of $37 million. It was intended as a replacement for the aging Honolulu Stadium on King Street, demolished in 1976.

In 1997, a three game series between Major League Baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Padres was held at this stadium.

In 2003, the stadium surface was changed from AstroTurf to FieldTurf.

[Source: Wikipedia]