Downtown sports stadiums are a mixed bag. While they can attract tourism dollars and spur development, they aren’t always good neighbors aesthetically. Many rise abruptly, big and opaque, looking like downed spaceships.

Not so CHS Field, in the Lowertown Historic District of St. Paul. The $64 million, 7,000-seat ballpark is the new home of the locally beloved minor league team the St. Paul Saints. The porous park, designed by Minneapolis-based Snow Kreilich Architects, with Ryan Architecture + Engineering (A+E) as architect of record and AECOM as the sports architect, has a street-level entrance and concourse, while the field and seats dip down to 17 feet below grade, providing views of the surrounding neighborhood and, to the south, the Mississippi River and its bluffs.