Minute Maid Park

Minute Maid Park, previously known as The Ballpark at Union Station, Enron Field, and Astros Field, is a ballpark in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, that opened in 2000 to house the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball (MLB). The ballpark is Houston's first retractable-roofed stadium, and features a natural grass playing field. The ballpark was built as a replacement of the Astrodome, the first domed sports stadium ever built, which opened in 1965. It is named for soft drink brand Minute Maid, a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company, which acquired naming rights in 2002 for $100 million over 30 years. As of 2015, Minute Maid Park has a seating capacity of 41,574, which includes 5,095 club seats and 63 luxury suites.

The largest entrance to the park is inside what was once Houston's Union Station, and the left-field side of the stadium features a railway as homage to the site's history. The train moves along a track on top of the length of the exterior wall beyond left field whenever an Astros player hits a home run, and/or the Astros win a game. The engine's coal car is filled with giant oranges in reference to Minute Maid's most famous product, orange juice.

Minute Maid

Minute Maid is a product line of beverages, usually associated with lemonade or orange juice, but now extends to soft drinks of many kinds, including Hi-C. Minute Maid is sold under Cappy brand in Central Europe and under Fruitopia in Norway.

Minute Maid was the first company to market orange juice concentrate, allowing it to be distributed throughout the United States and served year-round. The Minute Maid company is owned by The Coca-Cola Company, and is the world's largest marketer of fruit juices and drinks. The firm opened its headquarters in Sugar Land Town Square in Sugar Land, Texas, United States, on February 16, 2009; previously it was headquartered in the 2000 St. James Place building in Houston.

Overview

The company was originally incorporated in 1945 as Florida Foods, Inc. It employs over 1,900 people and has over $2 billion in sales (1997 est.).

History

In 1945, the National Research Corporation (NRC) of Boston, Massachusetts, developed a method of concentrating orange juice into a powder using a high-vacuum evaporation process previously developed for dehydrating medical products for use in the U.S. war effort. The US Army had a need for 500,000 lb (227,000 kg) for the war, so NRC created a new branch, the Florida Foods Corporation. Led by John M. Fox, the company won the government contract for $750,000. The war ended and the contract was canceled before the factory could be built, but with investment, the company moved forward with a product.