<p>Rogers Centre, originally named SkyDome, is a multi-purpose stadium in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada situated just southwest of the CN Tower near the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989 on the former Railway Lands, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). Previously, the stadium served as home to the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL), played an annual game at the stadium as part of the Bills Toronto Series from 2008 to 2013. While it is primarily a sports venue, it also hosts other large-scale events such as conventions, trade fairs, concerts, travelling carnivals, and monster truck shows.
</p><p>The stadium was renamed "Rogers Centre" following the purchase of the stadium by Rogers Communications, which also bought the Toronto Blue Jays, in 2005. The venue was noted for being the first stadium to have a fully retractable motorized roof, as well as for the 348-room hotel attached to it, with 70 rooms overlooking the field. It is also the last North American major-league stadium built to accommodate both football and baseball. The stadium served as the site of both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2015 Pan American Games. During the ceremonies, the site was referred to as the "Pan Am Dome" (officially as the "Pan Am Ceremonies Venue") instead of its official name.
</p><p>SkyDome, called Rogers Centre since 2005, was designed by architect Rod Robbie and structural engineer Michael Allen and was constructed by the EllisDon Construction company of London, Ontario and the Dominion Bridge Company of Lachine, Quebec. The stadium's construction lasted about two and a half years, from October 1986 to May 1989. The approximate cost of construction was C$570 million ($966 million in 2016 dollars) which was paid for by the federal government, Ontario provincial government, the City of Toronto, and a large consortium of corporations.
</p><p>The venue was the first major team sports stadium in North America with a functional, fully retractable roof (Montreal's Olympic Stadium also had a retractable roof, but due to operational issues, it was replaced with a permanent roof). The roof is composed of four panels and covers an area of 345,000 square feet (32,100 m2). The two middle panels slide laterally to stack over the north semi-circular panel, and then the south semi-circular panel rotates around the stadium and nests inside the stack. It takes 20 minutes for the roof to open or close.
</p><p>The Renaissance Toronto Hotel is also located within Rogers Centre, with 70 rooms overlooking the field.
</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre" class="extiw" title="en:Rogers Centre">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre</a>
</p>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License" class="extiw" title="en:Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...</a>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/75683070@N00">Ken Lund</a> from Reno, Nevada, USA
CC BY-SA 2.0
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/21652315548/">Rogers Centre, Toronto, Ontario from CN Tower</a>