This seems like a good idea:

Red Sox officials said yesterday that they have applied for landmark status for Fenway Park, a move that could save them millions of dollars in renovation costs by making the team eligible for federal tax credits.

”We applied to the National Park Service to have Fenway placed on the National Historic Register" about a month ago, said Janet Marie Smith, the Red Sox vice president of planning and development, five months after the team said in March that it plans to stay put in Fenway, Major League Baseball’s oldest and smallest stadium, rather than build a stadium.

The Red Sox are in the midst of a nearly decade-long program of $200 million in renovations at Fenway, which was built in 1912, officials said. A building that has been granted landmark status by the National Park Service can be eligible for a rehabilitation tax credit that ”equals 20 percent of the amount spent in a certified rehabilitation of a certified historic structure," according to the Park Service’s website.

Getting landmark status from the National Park Service is a multistep process, said Smith, who could not say how long it would take to complete the process.

She also said she could not put a dollar value on what rehabilitation tax credits might be worth to the team.

Attempts to reach the Park Service last night were unsuccessful.

Getting landmark status also could give the Red Sox a greater say in how development unfolds outside of Fenway Park, said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Northampton who studies sports.