Sunday, September 09, 2001

By Bruce Keidan, Post-Gazette Columnist

TORONTO - Before the latest epidemic of ballpark-building in North America, before stadiums all were named for conglomerates, before PNC Park was a gleam in Kevin McClatchy's eye, there was SkyDome, and it was very much state of the art.

It had a sliding roof. Not just a lid, like the Astrodome in Houston; a pop-top. Nice night? You leave the roof open and enjoy the moon and the stars. An unexpected squall blows in off the lake, you push a button, and in a mere 20 minutes, you've got a roof overhead.

OK, so it cost so much to build, the debt service will never be paid off. OK, so the fans are not right on top of the action, the way they are in Pittsburgh's PNC Park. OK, so the nearest parking lot is in Montreal.

It is nonetheless unique. And I'll tell you why: It is the only stadium with its own hotel. Not the only stadium in Canada. Not the only one in North America. I'm talking the known universe here. Texas included. That hotel was the talk of Toronto when it opened in March 1990 -- and the laughingstock of Canada shortly thereafter, because of an episode that occurred in one of the 70 guest rooms overlooking the stadium's playing field.

Open your curtains, and you have a great view of the game from the windows of those rooms. And, if they choose to look, the spectators in the stadium have a great view of you.

Which is what happened one night. A couple rented a room, drew the drapes and gave new meaning to the phrase "exhibition game." They got an ovation -- and the city got a new ordinance outlawing certain displays of affection in public view.

Things went quickly downhill from there. SkyDome plunged into bankruptcy, and the hotel fell into disrepair. The wallpaper was peeling. Worn carpeting wasn't replaced. The Toronto Blue Jays, the SkyDome's primary tenant, went from American League champions to the ranks of Major League Baseball's also-rans. Attendance tumbled, and occupancy rates at the hotel took a dive.

The Blue Jays remain becalmed, but not so the SkyDome, which was purchased by Sportsco, or its hotel, which was acquired by the Marriott International Inc. late in 1999 and transformed into the Renaissance Toronto Hotel.

Not the Renaissance SkyDome Hotel, mind you. Nothing in the new title to suggest that a hanging curve ball might end up in the armoire if you open your window at the opportune moment. Or that the closed-circuit telecast of every game is available in every field-view room.

There is method to that seeming madness. Renaissance has decided to market the property as what it terms an "urban resort." Rather than belaboring the obvious -- you can fall out of bed and watch Roger Clemens or Nomar Garciaparra perform -- the hotel is pushing its proximity to other, less obvious attractions. Less obvious, at least, to those unfamiliar with this toddling town.

Toronto is a very happening place, a cosmopolitan city with a population of about 2.5 million. Another 2 million live within a 40-mile radius. It is part New York City and part San Francisco, traffic jams included. Except it is relatively safe and clean and located on a lake instead of an ocean harbor. And, owing to the strength of the American greenback against the Canadian loonie, it is more affordable than you might think.

The Renaissance Toronto is located in the heart of Toronto's Entertainment District, meaning you can walk to the theater to see "The Lion King" in a little under 10 minutes. The CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing structure, is right next door. Second City, the mecca of improvisational comedy, is just down the street. You are a short stroll away from the Air Canada Center, where Vince Carter, the star of Toronto's National Basketball Association team, the Raptors, regularly jumps through the roof.

There is even an "executive" (par 3) golf course across the street from the hotel, a little island of green amid an ocean of steel and concrete.

There are a dozen or more first-rate restaurants (and twice that number of bistros, including one bearing the name of Wayne Gretzky, considered by some Pittsburghers to be the second-greatest hockey player of the past generation) within a stone's throw of the Renaissance.

My favorite place for lunch in the neighborhood is an unpretentious delicatessen called Reuben Schwarz, where the signboard lists all sorts of sandwiches, but the staff recommends only one -- smoked meat. It's like corned beef. Only better.

Other recommended eateries on the same side of the same block offer more ambitious fare and a variety of liquid libations. I would highly recommend Milano for fine Italian food and the barbecued ostrich wings at Fred's Not Here.

It's a cab ride to get to the closest Chinatown -- and Toronto has three of them. And if you want to eat on the cheap in downtown Toronto, you don't have to go to a restaurant. You cannot walk a block without encountering a cart where a vendor is grilling hot dogs, Polish sausages and veggie dogs. That is true even at 2 in the morning, after the restaurants close.

Urban resort the Renaissance Toronto may be, but its rates remain linked inextricably to the SkyDome, for better or worse.

The price you pay for a room anywhere in the hotel will depend on how busy the hotel expected to be when you reserved that room. That is more or less standard practice throughout the hotel industry. What's different about this hotel is that the price of a room on the first four floors varies from April through September depending on whether the Blue Jays are playing at home. And whom they are playing.

The rates for those field-view rooms reach their peak when the Yankees or Red Sox are in town, mostly because their fans have a tendency to follow them to Toronto.

The Blue Jays were out of town the weekend that I arrived in late July for a weeklong stay. A Canadian Football League contest featuring the Toronto Argonauts was the only game in town during the first five days of my visit.

Here's a measure of what kind of an attraction the Argonauts are. The Bistro is the Renaissance's restaurant with a view of the field. There is a cover charge if you want to sit by the picture window while a baseball game is in progress. During Argonauts games, they pay you to sit there.

OK, so I'm overstating matters a little.

In any event, I wasn't expecting to pawn the family jewels to pay for my room, at least until the Yankees arrived from the Bronx on my last two days in residence.

One thing you learn as a travel writer: Things rarely go as expected.

I arrived on a Sunday afternoon. The desk clerk said: "We were expecting you Thursday. When did you change your reservation?"

I hadn't. I had called the hotel in April or May and spoken directly to the hotel's reservations manager.

I speak American. He spoke Canadian. Something got lost in translation. When I hadn't arrived on Thursday, the hotel assumed I wasn't coming at all and canceled my reservation.

In the fullness of time, a room was found. A room on the ninth floor. A room with a wonderful view of the railroad tracks and the freight trains that clattered past in the small hours of the morning. But no view whatsoever of the playing field.

Could I trade up, perhaps? If only for a day? If not for a field-view room then for something on the 11th floor, where at least I could hear the SkyDome roof slide overhead when it opens?

Sorry, not possible. And as for the first-floor rooms, even a broom closet was out of the question.

Kathleen Gorman, the hotel's director of sales and marketing, did agree to show me some field-view rooms, including a bilevel suite with hardwood floors that rents for 700 loonies a night when the Yankees or Red Sox visit. Better still, some friends who arrived a day before I did had been assigned a suite on the fourth floor overlooking right field. I wrangled an invitation to share a room-service lunch with them on Saturday afternoon and watch Roger Clemens bedazzle the Blue Jays. From their sitting-room sofa, Clemens' fastball was all but invisible. The Blue Jays, too, seemed to have trouble seeing it, much less hitting it.

The Yankees were 10 runs in front when I excused myself in the eighth inning and walked next door to visit the CN Tower. Adults pay 10 loonies to ride the glass-enclosed elevator to the observation deck, and the wait to board can be up to an hour. Then you wait again to go back down.

Is it worth the expense and aggravation? If you happen to love walking around on a clear glass floor at cloud level, it is. On a clear day especially. The view is magnificent.

Not to worry, says the elevator operator on the way up: The glass deck can withstand the weight of 14 hippopotami.

Very reassuring. The door slides shut behind me, and the operator is gone before I think to ask how many tourists equal one hippopotamus.