Yankee Stadium Achieves WELL Health-Safety Rating

(Photo Credit: Shinya Suzuki, Flickr Creative Commons)

In a first for any sports or entertainment venue worldwide, Yankee Stadium achieved the WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility Operations and Management. The recently-launched rating evaluates features across categories that include air and water quality management as well as cleaning procedures.

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) created the WELL Health-Safety Rating based on guidance from the World Health Organization, the CDC, other disease control and prevention agencies, academic institutions, and standard-making bodies such as ASTM International and ASHRAE.

“The WELL Health-Safety Rating provides operational policies, maintenance protocols, emergency plans, and stakeholder engagement strategies to help organizations prepare and maintain their spaces for re-entry in a post covid-19 environment,” the institute explained. Over 100 organizations that collectively have more than 500 facilities enrolled in the documentation-based program when it launched in June.

One of the organizations was the New York Yankees. Third-party verifier Green Business Certification (GBCI) confirmed that Yankee Stadium achieved the WELL Health-Safety Rating by implementing features across five categories, according to IWBI. These categories are: air and water quality management, cleaning and sanitization procedures, emergency preparedness programs, health service resources, and stakeholder engagement and communications.

Measures the Yankees took included reviewing the stadium’s inventory of all filters and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation equipment, selecting cleaning products that disinfect without harmful ingredients, and employing signage throughout the stadium promoting health literacy.

Yankees senior vice president of stadium operations Doug Behar said that working with the institute to achieve the rating allowed his organization to “implement the most effective and efficient methods known to help mitigate the risk of covid-19 transmission in both a workplace setting and a place where the general public will eventually gather again.”

Last year the Yankees announced that they had become the first major North American sports team to sign the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework. Sustainability measures at the stadium implemented prior to the pandemic included switching to efficient LED lighting, utilizing a high-tech energy management program for improved equipment efficiency, committing to achieving zero waste, recovering waste cooking oil, and monitoring water usage to save more than 3 million gallons of water annually.

“Yankee Stadium uses high-performance filters and a regular replacement program to ensure particle removal effectiveness of MERV 13 or greater, for better air quality and energy efficiency in our HVAC system,” according to the team.

Covid-19 turned Major League Baseball upside down this year — creating delays, condensing the season, emptying seats. A number of players and staff members have tested positive throughout the pandemic. Outbreaks struck the St. Louis Cardinals and the Miami Marlins. SI.com recently reported that MLB is weighing a “bubble” format for the postseason to limit teams’ locations and their potential exposure to the virus.

Meanwhile, in achieving the WELL Health-Safety Rating, the New York Yankees want to make sure they are “appropriately prepared to accommodate the reintroduction of fans when approved to do so by Major League Baseball and local governmental authorities,” the organization said.