Wilson, North Carolina. Home of the Wilson Warbirds, Single A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. Opened 2026.

Wilson Ballpark brings professional baseball into the heart of the city's historic downtown, and was briefed as more than a game day destination.

Open concourses, shared gathering spaces and strong visual connections to the surrounding streets make a venue woven into Wilson rather than walled off from it. The park is right sized around intimacy and accessibility rather than capacity for its own sake. It anchors a wider downtown transformation and is built to carry community events and entertainment that keep the district active outside the season, which is where a ballpark either earns its public investment or does not.

Open concourses and shared gathering space cost no more than closed ones, but they decide whether a district stays active after the ninth inning. Thoughtful scale and purposeful planning produce memorable experience without losing sight of long term value.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Community Connection. Experience Design.

Hagerstown, Maryland. Home of the Hagerstown Flying Boxcars of the Atlantic League. Ballpark of the Year, ALPB, 2024. Historic Preservation Award, City of Hagerstown, 2024. Best New Venue, PressBox Best of 2024.

Pendulum collaborated with Turner Construction on a Design Build project for the Maryland Stadium Authority.

Pendulum took on the risk of developing a Schematic Design level BIM model eight months before the project was awarded. That model gave the build partner the information to run historical cost modeling and identify budget challenges before they became change orders.

The multi use facility carries a 360 degree wrap around concourse, premium fan amenities, state of the art locker rooms, food and beverage spaces, ADA accommodation and restrooms, and takes sports, e sports, concerts, festivals, town halls, movie nights, car shows, weddings, conferences and civic events.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection.

Appleton, Wisconsin. Home of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. 2023 Ballpark of the Year, Ballpark Digest.

Built in 1995 to meet minimum National Association standards, the park was safe and comfortable but left with too few concession points of sale, the wrong toilet fixture ratios, no way to operate year round and not enough storage.

The 2013 renovation doubled both restroom and concession points of sale and added a 6,000 square foot banquet space on a new premium level. New press facilities, team store, storage and team administration brought a net increase of roughly 30,000 square feet of finished interior space.

The 2023 phase met the new Player Development License standards. The clubhouses switched sides, and the new home clubhouse is twice the size of the old one, carrying a circular locker room, two indoor batting cages, a dedicated female locker room and a weight room connected to an outdoor agility field.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. A concept for a downtown Royals ballpark. Winner, International Rethinking the Future ACD 2022 Award.

The Royals' first World Series title since 1985 turned downtown into the epicenter of the celebration, with fans packing streets, bars and restaurants across the metro. It left the Kansas City business community with a question: what if every day of the regular season felt like that?

A group of like minded Kansas City business owners put their heads together on what a downtown ballpark could be. To be clear, nobody asked for our opinion on the subject.

But we think there is a compelling story to tell, and that it should speak to the past, present and future of Kansas City. The concept has been covered by the Kansas City Business Journal, The Kansas City Star and Startland News.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Community Connection. Revenue Innovation.

Gastonia, North Carolina. Home of the Gastonia Ghost Peppers of the Atlantic League and anchor tenant of the FUSE district, which the City of Gastonia is leading as its own municipal developer. Opened 27 May 2021.

The 9.4 acre site was assembled from four industrial and commercial parcels, including a decommissioned Sears and the surface parking around it. Most sports facilities take all the land they are given.

This one was compressed instead. Holding the ballpark envelope tight preserved development parcels with views into the field, and the bowl was held to seven rows rather than the usual twelve to fifteen, extended asymmetrically down the first base line. A banquet level sits fourteen feet above the concourse with a 300 person lounge, a 250 person banquet, a catering kitchen and professional AV.

The parcels the ballpark chose not to take became Phase 2, the FUSE District Master Plan. Joe Mock of BaseballParks.com: Architect Cole has broken the code for creating 5,000 seat ballparks for half the budget of other such facilities.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Site Integration. Operational Efficiency.

In the press: CaroMont Health Park in USA TODAY Sports Weekly: breaking the code for 5,000 seat ballparks at half the budget.

Antioch, Tennessee. Nashville Soccer Club's MLS training facility. 48,000 square feet at a cost of $40 million. Opened Spring 2024.

Principal and CEO Jonathan Cole served as owner's representative, acting as the direct client liaison for Ingram Industries, the team owner.

That role put Pendulum on the owner's side of the table alongside architect of record Moody Nolan and general contractor Pinnacle Construction, among others. It is a different discipline from designing the building: protecting the owner's budget, schedule and program against every other party's interests.

It also continues Pendulum's diversification across sports architecture beyond baseball, and reflects a commitment to collaborating with clients who value diversity and inclusion among their service providers.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Community Connection.

Kansas City, Missouri. An event space in the Crossroads Arts District.

Pendulum served as architect and interior design firm for the conversion of a former medical equipment production facility into a commercial event space.

The redevelopment added the support spaces an event business actually bills for: a catering kitchen without commercial cooking equipment, a main bar on the assembly level, restrooms supporting the assembly space, bridal and grooms suites on the lower level, a secondary bar, general storage, a utility room, coat room and bar storage.

An industrial shell already has the span and the ceiling height. What it lacks is the service infrastructure that lets a venue run two events in a weekend, and that is where the budget went.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency.

Sonoran Desert, southwest United States. First Award winner for Sports and Recreation Concept, Rethinking the Future Awards 2022.

An oasis is a place that provides refuge, relief or pleasant contrast. Deep in the desert, the complex sets out to deliver an elite sports training experience where the site offers none of it naturally.

At the nucleus sits a multi purpose facility able to take baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse or soccer. The stadium is bisected by a central spine acting as an amenity hub for both the main field and the basketball facility, so the amenities are shared rather than duplicated.

Around the nucleus sit on site dormitories, training fields, retail pads and an Olympic regulation natatorium and track facility. The site is bisected by the main thoroughfare, which becomes the circulation spine for the entire development. Shared amenity is what lets a remote campus carry this much program.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design. Site Integration.

Kansas City, Missouri. Opened 19 June 2021, a few blocks north of the historic Westport neighborhood.

Patrick Klima came back to Pendulum a couple of years after the first storefront on Broadway with a simple brief: run it back on a new store, but this time go bigger.

The Pendulum team designed and executed the second store on an expedited schedule to be ready for the opening date. WyCo Vintage specializes in the collection and sale of rare vintage t-shirts, premium sneakers and urban collectibles.

A second, larger store is a bet on volume, and the schedule mattered as much as the design. A retail opening that slips misses the season it was sized for.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design.

Gastonia, North Carolina. Phase 2 of the FUSE district, beside CaroMont Health Park.

CaroMont Health Park was held to a tight envelope on its 9.4 acre site so the surrounding parcels would survive with open views to the field. This plan is what those parcels become.

Two residential buildings carry 158 units. Parcel A holds 70 units with 66 garaged spaces and 8 street spaces, and Parcel B holds 88 units with 88 garaged spaces, below grade parking, an infinity pool and cabana seating on the ballpark side, and top level penthouse suites.

Alongside the housing sit 58,600 square feet of leasable office with 220 parking spots, a 6,800 square foot grade level restaurant facing the field and a party deck for 100. The concept houses players as well as local fans, which is what makes a ballpark neighborhood into an entertainment district.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Site Integration. Community Connection.

Expo 67 Island, Montreal. A concept. Architecture, Design and Construction Award winner, Rethinking the Future 2020.

Most ballparks are built for the primary purpose of playing baseball, which leaves them empty most of the year.

This one incorporates technology that encourages multi use from the start. The massing was manipulated to preserve views across the bay in both directions without sacrificing the use or functionality of any component, and the design embraces the natural topography of a historic site while paying homage to the architecture around it.

Video walls, a fully equipped sound stage, expansive pedestrian concourses with clear views to the downtown business district, upper level breezeways, pedestrian plazas and walking trails with lake access ask this to be regarded as an important public asset and a true community green space rather than a venue.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection. Site Integration.

Hartford, Connecticut. Home of the Hartford Yard Goats. Best AA Ballpark, Ballpark Digest, in 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022.

The City of Hartford selected Pendulum to design an Eastern League Class AA ballpark at 1214 Main Street for the relocated New Britain Rock Cats.

Completed in 2017 at a cost of $71 million, it was drawn to link the northern and southern halves of downtown rather than sit between them, with an open perimeter so it reads as part of the neighborhood. It carries 6,500 seats, 18 premium suites and a premium level banquet space for 400, and anchors $360 million of proposed housing, retail and commercial development.

In 2023 Pendulum led a master plan and improvements project bringing the park into compliance with MLB Player Development License standards, adding 125 person picnic areas chosen for a swift return on investment.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Site Integration. Community Connection.

In the press: named 2017 Ballpark of the Year, and the touchless systems here became infection control in 2020.

North Port, Florida. Spring training home of the Atlanta Braves. Opened 2019 at a cost of $125 million. Visionary Design Award, Construction Specifications Institute, 2019.

The Braves have consistently operated ahead of the curve on the sports business model, and the brief was a campus rather than a ballpark.

CoolToday Park runs eighty acres: 55,000 square feet of major and minor league clubhouses, 15,000 square feet of team training, four full size practice fields, an agility surface larger than a football field, indoor weight training, a nutrition center, maintenance and player dormitories. The ballpark seats 6,000 with 8,500 capacity, and 80 percent of its concourses are protected from the Florida sun and rain.

The design borrows the outfield wall dimensions and the Below The Chop hospitality area from SunTrust Park and honors Braves hall of famers in larger than life imagery on key facades, so a spring training site trades on major league equity. Hank Aaron called it a major league facility.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design.

In the press: Sports Business Journal, 2020 Power Players, and VenuesNow, where opening day here is named the best day on the job.

A concept prototype. First Award winner for Sports and Recreation, Rethinking the Future Awards 2020.

The goal is to disrupt the stadium marketplace in food service, technology, seating and operations, which is where stadium sales, sponsorship and operating problems actually live.

Pendulum assembled a group of like minded companies rather than working the problem alone: PrismView on digital display, point of sale and communications, SPS Technology on flexible seating bowls, Camatic on fixed armchair seating, Port Fonda on food service and hospitality, and Seda on automated retractable bowl technology.

The approach is flexible and modular. Rather than an unrealistically expensive one size fits all offering, the design is efficient, scalable and economically sustainable, which is the only way a prototype reaches markets that cannot afford a bespoke building.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency.

A 32,000 square foot premium environment for automotive enthusiasts.

A building full of cars earns nothing on its own. The question was what brings members through the door on an ordinary weekday, not just on the day they collect the car.

Fifty parking spaces and fifteen private garages give the development its membership base, sized for automotive clubs, cars and coffee events, educational workshops, detailing and premium vehicle customization.

The social program is the business case. A private conference room, catering kitchen, premium bar and outdoor terrace turn 32,000 square feet of storage into somewhere people book, gather and come back to.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. Architect of Record for concessions and hospitality at the new KCI terminal, with Silhouette Design Architecture for Vantage Group.

The new terminal opened in early 2023 at a cost of $1.5 billion across 1.1 million square feet and 39 gates. Pendulum and SDA were hired to complete full design documentation, construction administration and close out inside the overall project schedule.

The spaces include Director's Cut Take II, Meat Mitch BBQ, Soiree Steak and Seafood House, The Leagues Sports Lounge and Eatery, Safe Fresh, a commissary kitchen, Martin City Brewery and new offices for the Vantage team. Concessions are where an airport actually earns per passenger, and they have to be delivered against a schedule nobody will move.

The overall terminal was led by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill with design build team Clark Weitz Clarkson. The 1.1 million square foot building achieved LEED Gold, uses local materials and public art, and was a majority women led project. Pendulum's scope was the revenue floor inside it.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. A projected light and color installation for the West 18th Street Fashion Show, with 3Minc and McCownGordon.

3Minc's designs drew on the colors and patterns of 1960s counterculture and asked the audience to sit back, relax and flourish. Pendulum's brief was the room around them.

The installation mixes color, light and reflective materials to create the illusion of looking into the future. All the Juice is a multi dimensional psychedelic trip, an ever changing cadence of projected images, colors and lights filling the background and washing across the runway.

A fashion show is a single night with a fixed budget and no second chance. Projection and reflection buy scale that built scenery cannot, and they strike in hours rather than days.

S.C.O.R.E. Experience Design. Community Connection.

Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin. Home of the Green Bay Rockers and the Green Bay Voyageurs of the USL. Opened June 2019.

Big Top Baseball has relied on Pendulum for forward thinking concepts across several Wisconsin ballpark properties. Fifteen years of unique ideas, quirky additions and small renovations of underutilized municipal fields came before this one.

Capital Credit Union Park was the first chance to build from the ground up. Big Top and the Village of Ashwaubenon agreed a financing plan for a 2,500 seat, 5,000 capacity ballpark on an existing Village owned parcel next to the municipal office complex.

The park illustrates the value of a long relationship with an owner and the discipline to look past the obvious, more expensive solution in order to meet a client's financial constraints. As an economic development project it injects pedestrian energy into a municipal block that had been dominated by an industrial feel.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection. Site Integration.

A single family home on a wooded slope, presented as a 360 degree walkthrough.

The house is shown as a sequence rather than a set of stills, which is the honest way to present a home where the experience is the circulation.

The walkthrough moves through the exterior, living room, breezeway, office, master bedroom, master bathroom and basement. Masonry and timber carry the exterior, and a deck pushes the living space out into the trees on a falling site.

Seven viewpoints in one continuous tour let a client walk the house before it exists, which is the point at which changes are still cheap.

S.C.O.R.E. Experience Design. Site Integration.

Kansas City, Missouri. The second Tiki Taco location, on Troost Avenue, for the Wade Brothers.

The original Tiki Taco on West 39th Street is a 2,136 square foot fast casual concept with limited indoor seating that worked well enough to justify a second site.

The Troost location is a 1,510 square foot rehabilitation of a building previously used as a coffee shop. Pendulum provided interior layout and design, food service equipment design and coordination, mechanical, electrical and plumbing coordination, structural design assistance, permitting and outdoor patio seating design. At 1,510 square feet the patio is not an amenity. It is the difference between the covers the concept needs and the covers the building allows.

The first location proved the concept at 2,136 square feet. The second had to deliver the same covers out of 1,510, which is why the patio, the equipment layout and the permitting path were treated as the design problem rather than the finishes.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency.

A three bedroom single family home its owners call their forever home.

The owners lost their previous house on this site to a fire. The pool and the detached automotive workshop survived, and the new house had to be built around what remained.

With extended family at the center of the owners' lives, the design revolves around open space with views out toward nature, and gathering space for formal and casual dining and general entertainment.

The couple run a thriving automotive customization business, so the house carries space for six vehicles across two separate levels, with one bay designed to accommodate a vertical lift for servicing. Storage and workshop are program here, not afterthought.

S.C.O.R.E. Experience Design. Site Integration.

Kansas City, Missouri. A boutique vintage storefront just outside Westport for founder Pat Klima.

Klima already had a storefront in Merriam and a thriving e-commerce business, but wanted a strategically placed location in the urban core. The usable interior came to roughly 800 square feet, previously a fabric shop.

To get the crisp New York boutique feel Klima wanted, Pendulum had to maximize every foot of floor and organize inventory on the walls without looking cluttered. The existing wood veneer floors were in good shape and were kept. The build ran fourteen days from the start of construction to finish. Eight hundred square feet in the right location outsells three thousand in the wrong one, provided the walls are doing the merchandising.

Klima and Pendulum's Jonathan Cole met through a mutual friend and found a shared preference for clean lines and crisp detail. That alignment is what made a 14 day build possible on 800 square feet, where nothing could be decided twice.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. A commercial advertising photography studio built inside a former cell phone data center.

The building was, for lack of a better word, a bunker. Wide open spans, clean wall surfaces and almost no openings, which suited a shooting floor very well and an office very badly.

Three problems drove the design. Make a windowless interior somewhere people can work comfortably every day. Keep the shooting floor flexible enough for props and set builds to move in and out constantly. Integrate a specific set of operational requirements without adding visual clutter.

The answer used what was already there: raw concrete floors cleaned and polished, walls in a neutral palette, and new partitions arranged so glass faces the common space. The owners described their style as timeless modern with a few quirks. The budget went into the working set, not the finishes.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. Opened 2024. Historic Kansas City 2023-24 Historic Preservation Award for Excellence, Best Contribution to Affordable Housing Through Preservation.

Built in the early 1900s as a hotel, the St. Regis was called the most conspicuous building on the skyline by the Kansas City Star in 1914. Property values along the new boulevards had risen between 200 and 500 percent as developers replaced mansions with denser apartment hotels offering luxury amenities.

A century later the math had inverted and the building had fallen into disrepair with the changing times and economy. Pendulum was commissioned to restore it to its prior glory, this time in the form of elderly housing.

Historic Tax Credits are what made it pencil. The client, Millennia Development Group, was awarded them, the team completed the project and it opened in 2024. Preservation used as the instrument for delivering affordable housing.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection. Site Integration.

A collegiate ballpark design, shown in renderings and a full walkthrough video.

A college program cannot carry a professional bowl. The question is where to spend so the building still reads as a real ballpark.

The design sets a covered grandstand and seating bowl behind home plate, with a press box and hospitality building above the concourse. Premium space sits where it can be sold, and the rest of the bowl stays simple.

The walkthrough video moves through the concourse, the bowl and the building behind home plate, so a board can see the facility before committing to it.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Revenue Innovation.

Kansas City, Missouri. An exterior patio for Julep, curators of fine whiskey and hand crafted cocktails.

The pandemic hit hospitality hard, and operators needed ways to host patrons at a distance without losing covers. A bar that cannot seat people cannot trade.

Pendulum's design extends the interior lounge outdoors under the cover of operable glass windows, which keeps the seats sellable in more weather and more conditions than a plain patio would.

Operable glass is the difference between a seasonal amenity and year round inventory. On a constrained urban bar the patio is not decoration. It is the covers the room otherwise cannot hold.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency.

Kansas City, Missouri. A corner restaurant concept at the base of a mixed use building, shown in renderings and a walkthrough video.

Corner sites earn their rent on visibility. A restaurant that hides behind its own facade is paying for frontage it never uses.

The concept wraps an open air patio around the corner of the building, with bar seating, a fire feature and string lighting, so the dining room extends into the street rather than retreating from it.

Putting the activity where it can be seen is the cheapest marketing a restaurant will ever buy, and it converts a hard corner into the most valuable covers in the room.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design.

Strawberry Hill, Kansas City, Kansas. A concept renovation of a historic two storey building.

The client needed structured parking, multi family residential units, hospitality and commercial space, and a rooftop community space, all out of one historic shell. Stacking uses is what makes a small historic parcel carry its own costs.

The design delivers flexible meeting spaces alongside a mix of upscale and affordable residential units while keeping the look and feel of the historic structure intact. The outdoor terrace carries green space, a community garden and skylights for select units, so the roof becomes usable floor area rather than a lid.

A historic building on a small parcel only pencils when the roof, the street level and the floors between them each earn separately. That is the whole argument for the stack.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Site Integration. Community Connection.

An 88 unit residential concept adjacent to a minor league ballpark Pendulum had recently renovated.

A venue with people living beside it stops being a destination you drive to and starts being a neighborhood. Housing is what turns a ballpark into a district.

The study sets a below grade parking garage under the building and premium outdoor features on the ballpark side, including an infinity pool and cabana seating, with top level penthouse suites carrying two spacious bedrooms and bathrooms.

The concept would house players as well as local fans, which is what gives a new, revitalized urban ballpark neighborhood a reason to exist outside the season.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Site Integration. Community Connection.

Kansas City, Missouri. Renovation of a historic YMCA in the 18th and Vine Jazz District, for the City of Kansas City.

Circulation was the thing standing between the building and its income. Without a proper core the upper floors could not be let.

Pendulum designed an iconic vertical transportation core carrying stairs, elevators and storage, which unlocked commercial office across the upper four floors and a private event space in the basement.

Working with building owner Ollie Gates and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the skin was made to reflect Buck O'Neil himself. Perforated metal panels let sunlight through by day, casting shadows on the concrete behind them, and at night the light travels the other way so the building becomes the beacon he was.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection. Experience Design.

In the press: GRAND Magazine, on the Buck O’Neil portrait glove Jonathan Cole commissioned.

Detroit, Michigan. Headquarters for Detroit PAL on the site of Old Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Trumbull.

Detroit PAL gives inner city young people between the ages of 4 and 19 the chance to learn through athletics, across baseball, basketball, cheer, football, golf, soccer, softball, T ball, track and field and volleyball.

PAL aligned with the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, whose mission is the sustainable redevelopment of the site and the revitalization of Corktown. The original stadium had been demolished years earlier, and the only remnants left were the playing field surface and the flagpole standing inside the outfield wall. The design kept both.

Pendulum established the program as a 22,000 square foot headquarters with a second floor banquet facility, youth locker rooms and a flexible artificial turf playing field. It was the first major redevelopment in Corktown since the 2007 downturn.

S.C.O.R.E. Community Connection. Site Integration. Revenue Innovation.

Kansas City, Missouri. Unveiled June 2013. EDC Cornerstone Award for Energy, 2014. NOMA Honor Award, Built category, 2017.

The substation at 18th and Locust had been an eyesore for years, and after long deterioration the wall around it needed repair. KCP&L decided to fix the wall.

That decision was eclipsed by a vision to replace it outright with a design that would reflect the artistic community spirit of the Crossroads, lift the surrounding area and make a connection to the 18th and Vine District. The design wraps the substation in weathered steel and white concrete, with an eyebrow of weathered steel panels across the upper facade.

After dark, more than 10,000 LED lights powered by 115 solar panels bring the whole city block to life. A utility enclosure became a neighborhood landmark for roughly the cost of the wall it replaced.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Community Connection. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. Photography studio and event space for Lindsey and Linden Wade. 2013 NOMA Design Excellence Citation.

The Wades, named among the top 200 photographers in the world, wanted to relocate into an abandoned metal warehouse. The four parcel purchase included an attached brick warehouse, which became the second business.

Pendulum converted the brick warehouse into an event space with a seven foot chandelier, and added a beer garden holding one of the only green spaces in the East Crossroads, with a party tent to adjacent parking as needed. The detailing runs to the 1920s: Edison bulbs, subway tile, tin cornices, exposed brick and barrel vault, custom metal stairs with copper tread trim. Reclaimed barn hardwood ceilings and sinks from a Harley Davidson plant floor carry the sustainability through.

Two businesses came out of one four parcel purchase: the studio the Wades came for, and an event space and beer garden that earn when the cameras are off. That is the difference between buying a building and underwriting one.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design.

Utica, Michigan. A $15 million independent league ballpark at Auburn and Moscone Drive. 2017 Phoenix Award for Community Impact and People's Choice Award. 2017 ACEC Michigan Engineering Eminent Conceptor Award.

General Sports Entertainment was building a new professional league and needed a first ballpark that could be repeated in new markets. Pendulum was selected to design the prototype.

Program and scope carry from market to market, but the big idea was to let site and context govern the design, so each park earns its own character rather than arriving as a copy.

The site had been an unregulated landfill for household waste and required significant environmental remediation, which is the kind of parcel most projects walk away from. Taking it on is what made the economics work. The park is now breaking attendance records and acting as a vital economic driver.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection.

In the press: USA TODAY Sports Weekly on Jimmy John’s Field, a textbook example of innovation in sports architecture.

Macon, Georgia. A 75 year old historic ballpark about an hour outside Atlanta, home of the Macon Bacon.

The park has hosted an Atlanta Braves Minor League club and the Macon Music, and served as the film set for the motion picture 42, which chronicled Jackie Robinson's major league debut. History was never the problem.

Infrastructure was. The City of Macon struggled to retain tenants because the facility was too old for an audience that had changed. Modern Minor League baseball runs on affordable family entertainment, which means more fixed armchair seating is what keeps a tenant economically sustainable.

A $2.5 million investment went where people spend: twelve new concession points of sale, a full service production kitchen, a covered food cart zone with eight powered carts, two new restrooms, a kids fun zone, six cabana suites, a covered party deck for 200, a beer garden, reconditioned seating and a reconstructed outfield wall.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design. Community Connection.

Kansas City, Missouri. Open since late 2016 in the Crossroads Arts District.

Keith and Julie Thompson, long time Kansas City brew masters, brought Pendulum a site at 19th and Oak with an existing building of roughly 2,500 square feet. That alone could not carry the brewhouse, kitchen, dining room and support space the project needed.

Keith proposed adding a pre manufactured steel building to the existing structure. The collaborative design put the brewhouse equipment and all beer related program into the addition, which let the original building do what it was already good at. Shipping containers were specified for storage, brewing operations and as the perimeter of the outdoor dining area, so one move bought three functions.

Ted Habiger of Room 39 joined on food and beverage and got the custom wood fired grill at the center of the kitchen and a chef's counter for a personal dining experience. Brewery Emperial has been a consistent top local destination since it opened.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency.

Memphis, Tennessee. Renovation for the St. Louis Cardinals. Best Ballpark Renovation, Ballpark Digest, 2015.

AutoZone Park opened in April 2000 and has been counted among the most picturesque ballparks in Minor League Baseball ever since. A change in ownership and a shifting business model meant the question was no longer how it looked, but what each seat returned.

Pendulum removed roughly 3,500 seats from the bowl and replaced them with group areas, a grass berm and hospitality structures. Twelve of the existing forty premium suites came out, and that volume became a premium club behind home plate, a billiards lounge down the right field line, team administration offices relocated on site to the third base line and an outfield barbecue zone.

New digital ribbon boards lifted the visual energy of the bowl. All of the work, design and construction both, was completed during a single off season and opened in 2015.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. Adaptive reuse of a former transmission repair shop. IIDA Mid America Design Awards, Silver, Renovation and Restoration, 2017. Kansas City Business Journal Coolest Office Spaces finalist, 2018.

A 5,000 square foot industrial building in the redeveloping East Crossroads, owned by automotive and motorcycle enthusiasts who wanted a workplace that earned its keep as a place to think, not just a place to sit.

Materials on the interior vertical surfaces were repurposed from the original structural beams and walking surfaces, so the budget bought character instead of finishes. Custom steel and glass separate without blocking sightlines, keeping the floor plate open and legible. The result runs public, semi private and private space across one 5,000 square foot plate, and reads authentic rather than overdone.

The openness of the plan and the raw repurposed material make the interior feel authentic, and the owner's personality carries across every surface. Each zone reads like a different room of a house, which is what keeps a 5,000 square foot office in use all day instead of only at desks.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design.

Holly Springs, North Carolina. Ting Stadium, previously Holly Springs Park, in the Coastal Plain League, and the anchor phase of a master plan Pendulum completed for the City.

The ballpark was never the whole business. The master plan also carries soccer fields, tennis courts, a miracle field, public hospitality and a future indoor gymnasium.

It was planned around what the ownership group needed and what the community wanted, so the fields and hospitality spaces earn from tournaments, camps and public events rather than from baseball alone. The stadium is sited to maximize pedestrian interaction along Main Street and to leave room for future commercial development at the street edge.

Inside the secure line the focus is affordable family fun with an emphasis on comfort. The expansive roof protects patrons from the elements and, just as importantly, adds dates to the calendar for farmers markets and other civic activity.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection. Site Integration.

Kansas City, Missouri. A large field house at the University of Missouri Kansas City serving both students and community members.

For a multi purpose facility, profitability depends on rapid space reconfiguration. Faster and easier changeover translates into greater event capacity, revenue generation and profit potential.

An outdated wooden bleacher system was the bottleneck, limiting booking potential, straining resources and demanding hours of labor both before and after each event. The MAXAM traveling bleacher system, specified with Hussey Seating, addressed durability, comfort and efficiency together.

Changeover that once involved four to eight employees over several hours now takes one person thirty minutes. The Center has drastically reduced overhead and broadened its revenue base to community members alongside students, across basketball, volleyball, gymnastics and campus events.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection.

Kansas City, Missouri. A historic event space in the Crossroads Arts District. 2013 NOMA Design Excellence Citation.

Like the guilds it is named for, The Guild was made to be a hub where local artists, musicians and builders gather, work and play, and where collaboration across artisan trades actually happens.

On the east edge of the arts district, the venue carries an outdoor garden, large open spaces and a catering kitchen, which is the combination an event calendar needs to book weekdays as well as weekends. Pendulum provided design and construction services, renovating the historic structure and introducing reclaimed wood and steel that complement it rather than compete with it.

The result is a venue with a distinct vintage character, which is what a competitive event market actually pays for. The garden, the open floor and the catering kitchen are three separate reasons to book it.

S.C.O.R.E. Community Connection. Revenue Innovation.

Kansas City, Missouri. A rooftop hospitality building on the uppermost floor of the Cosentino's Market parking garage at 14th and Main, beside Jones Pool.

The program is small: four water closets, three urinals, six lavatories, a drinking fountain and a storage area.

Its value is the second shift. During the work week it lets the City serve patrons who want to eat lunch or walk and enjoy the sun. In the evenings and at weekends the same rooftop hosts wedding receptions and civic events for up to 600 patrons.

The City required a conventional brick and mortar delivery method. Pendulum's read afterwards was that, given the right circumstances, a prefabricated off grid method would put an identical building up for roughly half the budget in half the construction time.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Operational Efficiency.

Kansas City, Missouri. Fifty units over four storeys. 2013 EDC Cornerstone Award for Residential Building.

This is phase one of a master planned ten block downtown redevelopment, which means it carries a particular burden. It has to prove the demand the rest of the plan is counting on.

The building was designed to complement the neighboring Power and Light Entertainment District and to accommodate metro residents who want to live and work inside the urban core.

As master architect for the development, Pendulum also wrote the design standards and development guidelines for the Urban Redevelopment District approved by the City Planning and Zoning Commission, so the rules governing every later parcel came from the same hand as the plan. Phase two targets high density residential, mixed use retail and civic space.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Community Connection. Revenue Innovation.

Kansas City, Missouri. A historic Troost Avenue fire station converted into an event venue.

The new owners wanted a building that could earn as a venue without losing what made it worth buying in the first place.

The design retains many of the existing structural components and detailed finishes, paying homage to the history and previous uses of the building while adding the modern amenities a paying event calendar requires. A fire station already has the clear span, the ceiling height and the street presence an event space needs. The work was to add what it lacked and remove nothing that mattered.

Retaining the structure and the detailed finishes kept the character that makes the venue bookable, while the modern amenities are what let it charge. The building now earns on a calendar rather than sitting as a preserved artifact. More at firehousekc.com.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design.

Kansas City, Missouri. Micro unit apartments on historic Troost Avenue for UCB Properties.

The model is Singapore's ultra efficient hotels: deliver the affordability of a studio with the perks of a one bedroom loft, which only works if nothing is cut that a tenant would notice.

Kitchens are fully equipped with modern appliances, glass cooktops and dishwashers. The plan was arranged with the developer so queen size bedroom furniture fits on the mezzanine loft, and closet space is unusually large for a studio. Rent per square foot rises when the square feet are arranged properly. That is the whole argument for micro units, and it fails the moment the unit feels small.

Troost Avenue carries real history and real affordability pressure. Micro units let the building reach a rent a young tenant can actually pay while the developer still clears the numbers, provided the design gives back in fit what it takes in floor area.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Experience Design.

McAllen, Texas. A youth and adult sports complex on the developing northern edge of the city, near the Mexico border.

A tournament complex earns on utilization, which means field count and field variety, not on any single game.

The program carries 16 fields with an array of dimensions to take youth sport and adult organized play. Patron amenities include concessions, restrooms, shade structures and meeting rooms, with walking trails, playgrounds and water features open to the public outside the secure line. Sixteen fields turn a weekend tournament into a regional draw.

The complex sits roughly 45 minutes from South Padre Island, which puts a tournament weekend inside reach of a holiday market. Walking trails, playgrounds and water features keep residents on the site between tournaments, so the 16 fields are not the only thing generating a reason to come.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection.

Kansas City, Missouri. An urban master plan for Swope Community Builders.

East Village is a residential and mixed use neighborhood at the northeast corner of the downtown loop. The nine block area was dominated by surface parking lots, which is to say it was generating almost nothing per acre.

Pendulum was retained to design the plan that turns those nine blocks back into inhabited, taxable ground. As master architect, Pendulum also wrote the design standards and development guidelines for the Urban Redevelopment District approved by the City Planning and Zoning Commission, so the rules governing every later parcel came from the same hand as the plan. East Village Apartments is phase one.

A nine block area of surface parking produces almost no tax base, no residents and no reason to walk. The master plan exists to change what those blocks yield, and the development guidelines make sure phase two and everything after it are held to the same standard.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Community Connection. Revenue Innovation.

Kansas City, Missouri. Two spec houses built to fill neighborhood blight after the recession.

Beacon Hill was strained by the downturn, and redevelopment regained momentum only when the housing market did. Pendulum was commissioned to design a pair of adjacent homes aimed at young professionals, on a forward sloping site where the street level entry can take pedestrians only.

All three bedrooms and two full baths sit on the street level. The stairs lead up to kitchen, dining, living and a balcony with a view shed to downtown, with the garage entered from the alley on the second floor. One house follows a gable vault, the other a single shed pitch. Hardie and cedar siding keep the materials simple and the economics honest.

The pair were built as spec houses, which means they had to sell as well as stand. They offer an alternative to the traditional housing around them and redefine the identity of Beacon Hill on 2 lots that had been contributing nothing.

S.C.O.R.E. Community Connection. Operational Efficiency.

Kansas City, Missouri. Police station, crime lab and evidence repository for KCMO, with Helix Architecture + Design.

The $57 million East Patrol Division and Crime Lab campus had to give officers modern facilities and better means to investigate crime, while reading as part of the neighborhood rather than a fortress dropped into it.

The campus carries a police station, a multi purpose building, a state of the art crime lab and a property and evidence repository, designed to KCMO best practices and a US Green Building LEED Gold rating. Its central location in the urban core at Prospect Avenue and 27th Street was chosen to act as a redevelopment catalyst for the blocks around it. A civic building either consumes a neighborhood's value or generates it.

LEED Gold holds the operating cost of a 24 hour facility down for the life of the building. Siting it in the urban core rather than on cheap edge land is what lets it act as a catalyst, which is the return the city was actually buying.

S.C.O.R.E. Community Connection. Site Integration. Operational Efficiency.

Wausau, Wisconsin. Home of the Wisconsin Woodchucks. The first major renovation since the park was built around 1912.

Owner Mark MacDonald selected Pendulum on the strength of a pro forma based design approach and expertise in seating inventory, fan comfort and revenue generating ideas. The existing bench seating was cramped and riddled with obstructed views to the field.

Phase one rebuilds the seating bowl behind home plate outright, replacing benches with more spacious rows of fixed armchair seats, and adds dugout club group seating at field level. A new street facing facade gives the park curb appeal it never had, while the historic granite perimeter wall is preserved. More than a century of use, re underwritten.

Seating inventory is the lever on a park this old. Replacing obstructed bench rows with fixed armchair seats and adding dugout club group seating changes what the building can sell per game without changing its footprint, and the preserved granite wall keeps the asset that took a century to earn.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Experience Design. Site Integration.

Cary, North Carolina. Programming and conceptual design for the USA Baseball National Training Complex.

The complex opened in 2007 and hosts events for USA Baseball and for collegiate and international teams. By 2014 the question was what it needed next, and what the Town of Cary and USA Baseball Operations could share rather than duplicate.

Pendulum was hired to identify those needs and put options in front of stakeholders, delivering site plans, building plans, interior and exterior views, graphics and models. The program summary covered administrative, retail, multipurpose, storage, clubhouse, performance training, event and media space, plus exterior improvements to the complex.

Shared space between two owners is the cheapest square footage either of them will ever build. Options were priced against exactly what the Town of Cary and USA Baseball could hold in common rather than duplicate.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Community Connection.

Normal, Illinois. A multi purpose ballpark on the Heartland Community College campus, home to Heartland baseball, softball and soccer and to the Frontier League club.

A single tenant ballpark on a college campus does not pencil. This one was designed from the start to carry four.

An artificial turf field with a removable pitching mound makes the changeover possible, so concerts, high school football and community events are welcomed rather than merely accommodated. The program holds concourse level luxury suites, 4,500 fixed armchair seats and room for 3,000 more on the wrap around grass berm, on a twenty two acre parcel. A large entry canopy behind home plate creates a food court feel at the main gate with an unobstructed view to the field as patrons walk in.

On 22 acres the facility is not asked to survive on one season. It is asked to stay busy.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection.

In the press: Sports Business Journal on the drive-in screen built into this ballpark, and A Sports Fan’s Guide to Route 66, which features it.

Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Ballpark of the Year, baseballparks.com 2010 and Ballpark Digest 2016. Top Family Entertainment, Winston-Salem Journal, 2010 to 2020.

The site at the western edge of downtown was a crime ridden, underserved area before construction. The ballpark was never the point on its own.

Truist Stadium anchors approximately 200,000 square feet of master planned retail, housing and entertainment on adjacent parcels owned by the team ownership group. Phase two added roughly 40,000 square feet of commercial office, which began construction as the ballpark completed. Pendulum CEO Jonathan Cole was lead project architect at a previous firm, and after founding Pendulum was retained to manage completion, having led the master planning and design effort.

A ballpark on a crime ridden parcel is a land value argument before it is an architecture one. The 200,000 square feet around it, and the 40,000 square feet of office that followed, are the return the ownership group was underwriting.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection.

Columbia, South Carolina. Home of University of South Carolina baseball.

The site sits at the river edge beside a substantial proposed mixed use development aimed at revitalizing the edge of downtown Columbia, and the design was driven by a desire to blend into the wooded elements surrounding it.

Founders Park cost more than $35 million and holds 8,242, with roughly 6,400 fixed seats, five suites and two club levels. The concourse runs completely around the stadium. The field is sand based to USGA specification with 419 Bermuda turf, 325 down the lines and 390 to center. Team amenities include a 3,900 square foot weight room and four indoor batting tunnels. Transparency from outside the secure line lets the bowl read as simple despite the complexity inside it.

Its 8,242 seats anchor the parcels around it as much as they house the program. Walls in the outfield vary from 8 to 10 feet, and the batter's eye is 80 feet wide.

S.C.O.R.E. Experience Design. Revenue Innovation. Site Integration.

Dayton, Ohio. Home of the Dayton Dragons, Class A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Finalist, Ballpark Digest Best of the Ballparks, 2023. Bob Freitas Award, 2004.

The brief was a ballpark that would carry the revitalization of downtown Dayton and the adjacent riverfront, not simply host a season.

Day Air Ballpark carries 7,230 fixed seats and 25 suites, and was one of the first parks to offer upper deck premium seating at the Class A level. The amenity mix built a 5,000 patron season ticket waiting list and ten consecutive years of sellout demand before opening day. The Dragons' sellout streak has since passed 1,500 consecutive games, the longest in professional sports history.

The ballpark was key to the revitalization of downtown Dayton and the adjacent riverfront development. StadiumJourney.com ranked it the 14th best ballpark among 160 facilities in 2015, and the organization has taken the Bob Freitas Award, Minor League Baseball Organization of the Year in 2011 and the John H. Johnson President's Award in 2012.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Community Connection. Experience Design.

In the press: Ballpark key to the Dragons’ sellout streak, on the ballpark behind baseball’s longest sellout run.

Charlotte, North Carolina. Indoor and outdoor training facility for the Charlotte 49ers, with Architecture Unlimited.

Pendulum was brought in to produce the planning and fundraising material the university needed to secure funding. Before a building can be designed it has to be sold to the people paying for it.

The 4,000 square foot facility sits in what had been the home bullpen. A new bullpen was built in the outfield, requiring fence modifications, in order to give the building a logical location. The indoor complex is a 55 by 115 foot metal building with exterior features matched to UNC Charlotte's campus design standards, so it reads as part of the campus rather than a shed behind the ballpark.

Matching campus materials and finishes was not a cosmetic choice. A training building that reads as campus infrastructure is easier to fund, and the relocated bullpen turned an awkward leftover into the one place the facility logically belonged.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Site Integration.

Green Bay, Wisconsin. A new ballpark for the Green Bay Bullfrogs.

The first order of business was not the design, it was the site. Several were considered, and a six acre brownfield parcel in downtown Green Bay settled it.

The parcel is bordered by the Fox River to the east, a 200 foot wide river inlet to the north and the Mason Street bridge to the south, which is about as constrained as a ballpark site gets. The design focuses on right sizing the facility to those six acres and converting the constraint into the asset, with views to the Fox River and the downtown skyline from inside the bowl. A smaller park on the right ground outperforms a larger one on the wrong ground.

Right sizing is the whole strategy on 6 acres. Rather than fight the inlet, the river and the bridge, the design takes the views they create and sells them, turning a parcel most teams would have passed on into the reason to be there.

S.C.O.R.E. Site Integration. Operational Efficiency.

In the press: Sports Business Journal, January 2011, on the $10 million park the Bullfrogs hired Pendulum to design.

Bakersfield, California. A privately financed ballpark for the Bakersfield Blaze and the first phase centerpiece of the Bakersfield Commons development.

In June 2013 the ownership group unveiled plans for a $28,000,000 ballpark anchoring a proposed 350,000 square foot retail development at Coffee and Brimhall Roads. Pendulum was selected over nationally recognized competition to lead the design.

The deciding factor, in the owners' own account, was Pendulum's expertise in designing from an owner operator's perspective with a foundation in pro forma and revenue generating ideas. A $28 million ballpark carrying 350,000 square feet of retail behind it is not a stadium commission. It is a development underwriting exercise that happens to have a field in the middle.

The ballpark was designed as the first phase, which means every decision inside it had to protect the value of the 350,000 square feet queued up behind it rather than consume the site.

S.C.O.R.E. Revenue Innovation. Site Integration.

Kansas City, Missouri. A 5,000 square foot health clinic in an abandoned strip mall at 87th and Troost.

The scope meant selective demolition of existing partitions, cooking equipment and finishes, replaced by exam rooms, community meeting space and administrative offices.

Pendulum delivered it turn key and fast tracked, carrying general design, interior finishes, furniture selection and procurement, custom fabrication and construction management. The total scope was completed in just under four months. Because Building Information Modeling was the primary delivery method, every physical asset inside the envelope is still managed by Pendulum today through Computer Aided Facility Management.

Four months from an abandoned strip mall to a working clinic is the point, and the BIM model that delivered the project is still the asset register the building is run from.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Community Connection.

Kansas City, Kansas. A clinic for Swope Health Systems and the University of Kansas Medical Center.

The facility serves the public in Wyandotte County while giving medical students hands on training, so it had to work as a clinic and as a teaching floor at the same time.

Pendulum transformed an existing 10,000 square foot floor plate into a clinic with a deliberately vibrant look, and went beyond architecture into construction management and development, coordinating every aspect of construction and delivery from start to finish. One team carrying both design and delivery removes the seam where cost and schedule usually escape.

A public health facility that people avoid is a facility that does not perform. Serving patients and training students out of the same 10,000 square feet doubles what the floor plate returns.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Community Connection.

Kansas City, Missouri. A sustainable single family house on a long, narrow urban lot. Distend: to stretch, or extrude.

The goal was long term economic sustainability for the house and for the neighborhood, which on a tight urban parcel means the envelope has to do the work the mechanical system would otherwise pay for.

The primary structure is Structural Insulated Panels, giving higher effective thermal resistance and lower air infiltration so the HVAC runs less. Roof height lets skylights bring light to the north side, and solar panels carry an alternate energy source. Landscaping of lavender and switch grasses forms a private barrier and a path to the rear, and existing oak trees hold the back yard. A modern gable extrudes past the front facade to make a contemporary stoop.

Low maintenance exterior finishes hold the operating cost down over the life of the house. On a long narrow urban lot the only way to reach long term economic sustainability is to spend on the things that never need paying for twice: the envelope, the orientation and the trees that were already there.

S.C.O.R.E. Operational Efficiency. Site Integration.