There’s a lot going on at Des Moines’ Principal Park.
The city-owned home of the Iowa Cubs is in the midst of years of renovations to modernize the park, which has been the home of professional baseball in Des Moines since 1947, when it was known as Pioneer Memorial Stadium before being renamed Sec Taylor Stadium in 1959 after the former Des Moines Register sports editor.
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The stadium, in its current form, was built in 1992 and renamed Principal Park in 2004. Renovations to the park began in 2022 when the city added a new batter’s eye to block glare from the Iowa State Capitol’s gold dome. New clubhouses, bull pens, and spaces for female coaches and staff are among the other renovations.
After the Iowa Cubs wrapped up their 2025 season on Sept. 21 — and amid renovations to the stadium — the Register toured Principal Park to take readers behind the scenes of the 33-year-old stadium.
Principal Park mixes retro charm and high-tech to help Iowa Cubs players train
Upon entering the clubhouse, one of the first areas you’ll see is the gym/training facility featuring several squat racks, ellipticals and racks for dumbbells and kettlebells. It had a retro charm and all the bumper plates were painted in the Cubs’ color scheme.
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“This is kind of a players-only space,” said Peter Brooks, Media Relations Manager for the Iowa Cubs. “There’s usually not a lot of media or fans in this part of the clubhouse. All the interviews take place on field or in the suites.”
Behind one of the squat racks were nearly a dozen signatures from players from the past two years. Brooks didn’t know the significance behind the tagging of the wall. Maybe it’s a hall of fame of sorts for the gym rats on the team.
Player signatures are seen on the wall inside the player weight room at Principal Park on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Des Moines.
Our next stop was the batting cages, where, if the team is home and not traveling, players are working with coaches on hitting while reviewing data and analytics of past games and future opponents.
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Some of the high-tech equipment in the batting cage includes the TrackMan, which shows hitters their exit velocity, launch angle and spin rate. Cubs players can practice facing pitchers they are scheduled to face in the minors, or can even have the TrackMan set up to face some of the top pitchers in the MLB, like Paul Skenes and Gerrit Cole.
Surprising find in the Principal Park locker rooms? Lots of playing cards
To my delight, it smelled a whole lot fresher than I imagined it would have, say, if I got this tour during the season. Each player has their own locker with a chair, a safe and space to store clothes. Two red leather couches sit in the middle, and the locker room also features several TVs, computer monitors, speakers and lots of decks of playing cards.
The home locker room at Principal Park on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Des Moines.
The away team’s locker room features much of the same, minus maybe a couch or a TV (from the looks of it, I’d argue the away locker room has the better couch). The visiting team also has its own kitchen, training room and coaches’ offices at Principal Park.
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We stopped at the manager’s and assistant coaches’ offices before stepping into a storage space that housed the team’s jerseys and uniforms. Among the jerseys hung up were the Cubs’ ‘caucus’ jerseys the team wore in 2019 and its throwback jerseys from when the team was known as the Iowa Oaks from 1969 to 1981.
Next was the umpires’ lounge/locker room, which had several couches and tables, as well as a space where a different officiating crew is served food and snacks every game. Hung up in the lounge were framed photos of former crews who have worked Cubs games over the years.
Principal Park press box honors former Des Moines Register columnist
We passed through the field, where demolished sections of seats and other construction efforts can be seen, on our way to the Randy Peterson Press Box, named after the longtime Register sports columnist. While none were present during our visit, the Cubs provide food and beverages to media members at every game.
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“With how prospect-heavy our teams have been, we’ve definitely gotten a lot of attention from members of the media outside of Iowa,” Brooks said. “There are a lot of Iowa Cubs players that are contributing to the [Chicago] Cubs now.”
The broadcast booth inside the press box at Principal Park on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Des Moines.
Connected to the press box is the broadcast booth, where the PA announcer works and staff operate the sound and video that is displayed on the jumbotron and pumped throughout the stadium. One area that stood out was the room for the person operating the pitch clock and scoreboard, given the bobblehead collection stored there.
Shelves stack up with more than two dozen bobbleheads, mostly consisting of MLB legends with some cameos of local Iowa baseball players like Des Moines Hoover alum Jeremy Hellickson and Indianola’s Casey Blake.
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“It’s made up of a lot of guys with Iowa connections, but some are random, like Dallas Clark, who played football or Sammy Sosa, who played a scrimmage in the ’90s at Principal Park with the Chicago Cubs,” Brooks said.
(This story was edited to correct a grammatical error.)
Cooper Worth is a service/trending reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him on X @CooperAWorth.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Tour Principal Park as the Iowa Cubs’ stadium gets renovated
