Admiral Fetterman Field (located in the Community Maritime Park and also locally referred to as Blue Wahoos Stadium) is a multi-use park in

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal ...

that includes a stadium, commercial buildings, a waterfront public park and amphitheater. The mixed use stadium holds 5,038 people and can be used for a number of events year-round, including

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

, festivals, graduations, and similar events. The multi-use stadium was originally designed to be the home field of the

Pensacola Pelicans The Pensacola Pelicans were a minor league baseball team based in Pensacola, Florida. In various incarnations, they played in three different independent baseball leagues (leagues unaffiliated with Major League Baseball) from 2002 to 2010. They ...

; it hosts the

Miami Marlins The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park. The franc ...

Double-A affiliate, the

Pensacola Blue Wahoos The Pensacola Blue Wahoos are a Minor League Baseball team of the Southern League and the Double-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins. They are based in Pensacola, Florida, and play their home games at Admiral Fetterman Field. In 2012, the team rel ...

of the Southern League. The stadium is situated facing the

Pensacola Bay Pensacola Bay is a bay located in the northwestern part of Florida, United States, known as the Florida Panhandle. The bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, is located in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County, adjacent to the city of Pensacol ...

History

On April 28, 2009, the Pensacola City Council gave final approval for the ballpark to be built. The entire project cost $54 million and was completed in time for the Blue Wahoos' inaugural home opener on April 5, 2012. Building the ballpark cost $23,845,045.23.

Admiral Fetterman Field description

Admiral Fetterman Field is a , 5,038 seat multi-use stadium. Construction includes precast concrete bowl seating, steel framed elevated slabs, post-tensioned slabs-on-grade, and an auger cast pile foundation with concrete grade beams and

pile cap A pile cap is a thick concrete mat that rests on concrete or timber piles that have been driven into soft or unstable ground to provide a suitable stable foundation. It usually forms part of the deep foundation of a building, typically a multi-sto ...

s. This project was custom designed to meet the needs for the use by a minor league baseball team as well as for accommodating other sporting and festival type events. The structure and slab-on-grade was pile supported due to poor soil conditions and concern over scour from hurricanes. During steel fabrication and foundation construction, an AA baseball team was acquired. This acquisition required enhancements to the stadium. This was a challenge for the design team who worked diligently to adjust the structure while using newly constructed elements within the enhancements, while providing subcontractors information needed to keep construction moving forward without incurring additional mobilization fees.

Randall K. and Martha A. Hunter Amphitheater description

The amphitheater has architecturally exposed steel trusses and frames supporting curved steel roof purlins with a heavy timber, tongue-and-groove roof deck. The steel trusses and frames are designed and shaped to resemble the fronds of a palm tree. The steel structure is supported on concrete piers that are supported on a large concrete pile cap that rests on auger-cast-in-place piles. The concrete piers also support the main stage floor. The stage floor is a flat plate, thick post-tensioned concrete slab.

UWF Football

As of the 2016 season, the stadium hosts the

West Florida Argonauts The West Florida Argonauts (or UWF Argonauts) are the athletic teams that represent the University of West Florida, located in Pensacola, Florida, in intercollegiate sports at the Division II level of the National Collegiate Athletic Associatio ...

football team. On November 23, 2021, the

Argonauts The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, '' Argo'', ...

won a share of their first-ever

Gulf South Conference The Gulf South Conference (GSC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level, which operates in the Southeastern United States. History Originally known as the Mid ...

football title at the stadium in a win over

Valdosta State Valdosta State University (VSU or Valdosta State) is a public university in Valdosta, Georgia. It is one of the four comprehensive universities in the University System of Georgia. , VSU had over 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students. VSU a ...

. On November 20, 2021, UWF hosted their first-ever home

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

playoff The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

game at the venue."UWF Earns #3 Seed in NCAA Playoffs, Awarded First-Ever Home Playoff Game"
''NorthEscambia.com''. Retrieved 2021-11-22.

References

External links

City of Pensacola site for Blue Wahoos Stadium

Pensacola Blue Wahoos
{{West Florida Argonauts football navbox Minor league baseball venues Sports venues in Pensacola, Florida Soccer venues in Florida Baseball venues in Florida 2012 establishments in Florida Sports venues completed in 2012 American football venues in Florida College football venues West Florida Argonauts football Populous (company) buildings Southern League (1964–present) ballparks