New Stadium

[gozips19]

while i was driving around campus yesterday after the b ball game i saw the park by campus was torn down. is there any rumors about what will happen with the land? is the university interested in it?

[UA Fan]

Whu?? You mean that little park area north of campus next to Central Hower? What means "torn down"? We should acquire & redevelop the blighted structures near campus but maybe leave the parks as is?!

[gozips19]

no the larger park on exchange heading east just past rt. 8

[zen]

no the larger park on exchange heading east just past rt. 8

that was a city park

[fear the brown roo]

that land is going to be a new school which the city is bullshitting us in to believing we need to be rebuilt along with every other school in akron.

[liljc]

Are we talking about Mason Park?

[Beanie 4 Heisman]

well not every school needs rebuilt, but have you been in any of those schools some of them are horrific.

[fear the brown roo]

well not every school needs rebuilt, but have you been in any of those schools some of them are horrific.

i agree, some not all. back to the stadium now!

[Hilltopper]

My sources tell me we are only $1 millon away from our goal of $20 millon needed to make the announcement about the new stadium. Preliminary site work has already started with the demolition of several buildings. The lead fundraiser for this project is none other than Gerry Faust. It appears that he is doing a great job! The stadium will be sited as I said in an earlier post. Look for the announcement soon.

[zipboy]

Thanks Hilltopper, this really gets me excited. Glad to hear that Gerry is helping and doing a great job. Nice guy, we need everone on board to move the program forward.

[fear the brown roo]

of course you realize that faust doesn't even work for the university anymore, right? i bet your source is trying to sell time shares in florida too.

[urbanpreppie05]

Here is what I have heard about the stadium...keep in mind that much of this is common sense, some is hearsay, some is actual fact.Groundbreaking will probably not be until 2007, AFTER the new exhange street hall opens. The University cannot afford to lose housing, even for a semester or two. Since the new stadium is going where wallaroo/joey/wallaby/brown are, the replacement "beds" must be done before it is torn down. BTW, the new res hall opening has been delayed, mainly because national city bank took so long getting completed. And, as of now, Chipotle is NOT going to be in that spot-but don't say it won't happen yet.In addition, all businesses have not sold yet. Odd Corner will probably be the toughest sell. There has been some "wooing" at the Gardner Theater (student Union) where presentations on the stadium have been occuring over the last few months. The cash goal is really, really, really close. Expect more changes on exchange, including a median, and more restaurants/bars/stores/etc.

[zen]

putting it at the NE corner of exchange and brown makes a LOT of sense. In fact, the most sense of all locations. I just ruled it out because I didn't think they would try to raze those residence halls. But WTH, a stadium is much bigger than residence halls (which can be rebuilt elsewhere anyway). It puts the new stadium ajacent to Jackson field and the practice facility. Couldn't be more logical if you tried.Traffic can come 77/76 north up Brown, from Rt.8 (both dirs) west along Carroll, or from Rt.8 (southbound) west along exchange, and even some traffic from Rt.59 east from downtown.Parking could be an issue if we are talking about a 25k+ stadium filled to capacity. But the campus needs more parking too, so, solve both problems.BTW, I always thought those 'residence halls' were privately owned. That was another reason I didn't think the university would pay to aquire them. My bad.

[Zipsrifle]

I've always heard the Faust is an excellent speaker. He may be a great fundraiser.

[fear the brown roo]

according to UAM, faust is not employed by the university. i actually got a call from UAM laughing at that post. just passing on what was told to me.

[zipsbandman]

http://www.stadium.ucf.edu/NAV_feasibility_studies.htmlCheck out these renderings of UCF's new stadium. The reason I am bringing it up is that it seems to have a lot of similarities with what we are trying to do. They are paying 51 million for the project, which is in the ballpark of our projections. They are building a 41k facility. It's got the canal park type look with a tropical flavor. I can see UA going with this type of style.

[zen]

A couple of things.You'd want to enclose your concourses for ours. They can get away with them being open in FLA.Also, why does the seating seem to be on such a flat slope? All I can say is, don't buy season tickets behind a tall person, or someone with a large fro.

[Dr Z]

I would hope we do better than this.

[zipsbandman]

If the cost of ours comes to 60 million with less seats, the quality can only be better.

[Zipsrifle]

Is it me or does that seem like a lot of stadium for 40 million? Maybe that is the actual cost of construction and doesn't include any land purchases, architecture or engineering fees. The new UA Fieldhouse cost 40 million. Of course, if we're looking to integrate some dorm rooms, that could jack the price of ours up quite a bit, the UCF looks like it will be just a stadium.

[Hilltopper]

How about one like this one. I was there and it only seats 180k!

[Blue & Gold]

Great post Zipsbandman!!! Thanks for the great link w/ visuals!I agree w/ Zen, we need a steeper slope w/ our stadium seating. It's lousy to have your view continually blocked by the people seated in front of you. For some reason, many stadiums make this critical mistake and architects don't seem to learn from their mistakes. The seating at Jacob's Fiels is great! Steep enough so as your view is seldom obstructed.UCF's stadium is going to be nice... for them. But I'm hoping we are more creative and revolutionary with our chance!!!Firstly, I'll bet we incorporate many more loges into our design.Also, if residence hall(s) are incorporated into the design of our structure, it would afford the opportunity for interesting architectural angles, ala, Camden Yards. UCF's structure is basically your common, repetitious "bowl-style" football stadium. Typical of characterless football stadiums - they, as of yet, haven't seen the retro-architectural light as opposed to their baseball counterparts. After being in the Rubber Bowl for so many years, anything I see looks great in comparison. But aside from the sandstone and wrought-iron fencing, there does not seem to be a whole lot about UCF's design to make it a unique or imaginitive project. Hopefully we can do better.Our new stadium has been a looooong time coming! Baltimore's Camden Yards project was visionary and set a new standard for baseball stadium design. For us, now is not the time to settle for what's been done in the past. Now is our time to go ALL OUT and become the Camden Yards of football!!! Go Zips! p.s.I still think we should incorporate a red brick "Big Ben" style clock tower into our design. Akron's got many beautiful old clock towers around town - but none in the downtown/U district. This would be a great throwback element that would make this stadium project uniquely "Akron."

[interfx]

This would be so awesome!!!So anyone have good sources on if this is real? or us just dreaming/speculating... E Domain is a public process, and I would imagine if this was true this would be in the public record by now (or very soon) No doubt someone would start a protest about the city/Univeristy doing this...Any other data out there?I'm also assuming, as they get closer - they will start sending letters out to Alumni for donations/fundraising campaigns...

[gozips19]

i like the idea of a clock it would go well with all the new clocks around campus... and for the camdem yard reference its hard to compare baseball parks to football stadiums. with baseball you have felxibility with the size of the feild were you do not in football... as long as they don't make the the stadium look cheap and put it on campus i'll be happy.... i am also happy that they are taking there time in planning this project. i know that its killing us but the more time they take the better i think the project will turn out.can't wait to see the first game there and do some tailgating on campus!

[zen]

If you are going to have significant residence hall presence, then aesthetic quality of character is almost a requirement. You don't put in new residence halls in or near a stark structure of purely functional design. Aside from that, I would assume that it would have, after seeing how attention was paid to the visual impact and "tying together" the project was done the old corner of union/carroll.Adding residence halls may have been a need, due to displacing existing residence halls, but since the structure wont be functioning in relative isolation (like the rubber bowl was), and because your budget for additional structure is already there, why not avoid purely functional design? Speaking of Camden yards, imagine residence halls towering 5 floors above the stands at one endzone? I know I'd pay an extra $100 a semester to have a dorm with a window on the field. LOL.Imagine a prominent clock tower at one corner of the stadium....Imagine crosswalks to and from the residence halls, stadium entrances, and nearby vias to campus having a sultry and curvatious design amidst the green space....Imagine the face of buildings on the opposite endzone including restaurants with terrace style seating and accessability (for ticket holders) from both the street and the stadium, as well as a team shop, and various leasable space fronting exchange (also with architectural character).You're not just building a stadium. Your building something whose whole is greater than the sum of it's constituent parts. Something with unquantifiable value in how it adds atmosphere, character, and appeal to the University and campus, as well as serving many functions.