Prior to SkyDome, the outdoor Exhibition Stadium was the main stadium in downtown Toronto. But after a particularly cold Grey Cup football game in 1982, the city of Toronto decided that it needed an indoor stadium that could shelter fans in case of inclement weather.
Not wanting to completely deprive fans of outdoor baseball, the SkyDome was designed to be the first stadium with a motorized retractable roof that could be opened and closed depending on the weather.
Construction on the SkyDome began in October of 1986 and was finally completed in May of 1989. The stadium officially opened to the public on June 3, 1989, with a large concert featuring various Canadian musicians.
It cost $500 million to build SkyDome, which was much more than initial cost estimates. A number of investors contributed to the building costs, with a large portion being paid by the Canadian federal government, the Ontario provincial government, and the city of Toronto's government.
Because the stadium cost so much more than expected, the stadium opened with a huge amount of debt that it could not afford to pay. In 1998, the stadium went into bankruptcy.
In 2004, Ted Rogers of Rogers Communications bought the stadium and made many significant renovations to it, including removing Astroturf from the field in favor of FieldTurf, making Toronto the last team in MLB to make the switch.
