Janet Marie Smith tackles a Brave new world

A 1981 graduate of the Mississippi State University School of Architecture, she oversees the development of facilities that support entrepreneur Ted Turner's professional sports teams -- Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves and the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks. Smith also is director of planning and development for the Braves.

Janet Marie Smith, a 1981 architecture graduate, gave Oriole Park at Camden Yards its distinctive look. The $105 million facility is an integral part of Baltimore's urban renaissance. Now she's focusing her energy and talents on Atlanta. (Photo by Janis Rettaliata)

Her responsibilities at TBS Properties, a division of Turner Broadcasting Network, include overseeing design of the $150 million stadium that will be used for the 1996 Olympic games. The state-of-the-art stadium will seat 85,000 people for opening and closing ceremonies and for track and field events. After the Olympics, it will be the permanent home for the Atlanta Braves, seating 48,000 baseball fans.

Working with the Olympic Committee, designers, and a team of architects from Washington and Boston, Smith's main responsibility is to ensure that major league baseball can be played in the facility.

"I am given the responsibility of looking at things strictly from a bias of representing the baseball team," she explains.

Smith also is using her design talents to improve the CNN Center, giving it a greater presence for the 1996 Olympics, and is working on new spring training facilities for the Braves in Jupiter, Fla.

Smith joins TBS Properties after a successful stint with the Baltimore Orioles. As vice president for planning and development, Smith was responsible for the overall look of the celebrated Oriole Park at Camden Yards, site of the 1993 All-Star Game.

"Having a representative work for the baseball club full-time -- not only in how the park would work operationally but how it would look aesthetically -- was important to the owners of the Oriole ball club," Smith says. "They had strong desires for the stadium to be an old-fashioned urban ballpark."

The $105 million facility is considered an important part of Baltimore's urban renaissance. The ballpark received the prestigious American Institute of Architects' Honor Award in 1992.

Although Smith is an avid baseball fan, her real love is the revitalization of cities. She believes that sport facilities can be a catalyst for development in urban areas.

She explained, "My real interest in all of my jobs has been how you can take these facilities and rejuvenate cities -- really make them come to life."

Camden Yards and the Braves stadium are not Smith's only claims to fame. After graduating from Mississippi State, she worked in New York City as coordinator of architecture and design for Battery Park City -- a project in downtown Manhattan with an estimated cost of $3 billion. Before joining the Orioles in 1989, she was president and chief operating officer for downtown Los Angeles' oldest city park, Pershing Square.

Smith was the 1994 Alumnus of the Year for the School of Architecture.

She recently returned to campus as a guest lecturer. "It is wonderful to come back and look at the things that are being done here. It is especially nice to visit the School of Architecture," she says. "Some of my favorite professors are still here. I think it is a real compliment to the school that they have been able to keep such good talent for so long."

A recent field trip took fourth-year architecture students and professors across the United States to tour baseball parks in Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. As a part of their design studio, the students are studying and designing baseball stadiums. During her visit to campus, Smith reviewed the fourth-year projects and discussed with students their ideas and designs.

"I loved the time I spent with the fourth-year class that has been touring baseball parks -- the students are doing great work. Their understanding of the design is very sophisticated. They challenge my thinking -- I rely on visits like this to keep my own mind sharp," Smith says.

"I am impressed with the Mississippi State architecture program -- I always have been. The facility is one of the very best in the country. The varied backgrounds of students also is a real testimony to how the school recruits students."

A native of Jackson, she learned the ropes of the business at an early age. Her father, Thomas Henry Smith, has his own architectural firm in Jackson.

As the proud mom of a one-year-old son, Smith is busier than ever. She and her husband, Bart, live in Baltimore and she commutes to Atlanta once a week.

One thing is certain: she is not slowing down. Both her passion and talent for urban architecture will keep her in high demand.