Roos Field Renovation

[EWURanger]

I was listening to the NAU game and I think it was Marc Hughes they were interviewing. Larry had asked about the progress on a new video board, and they mentioned that was going to be the first step in something a lot "bigger". Stressed that they wanted a sold-out situation for every game. My personal thought is they were talking about making improvements on the west side of the stadium.

 

[MLEagle]

Hands down, the atmosphere has been better at Roos Field this year then ever before. The EWU staff is doing a great job of making games more of an event rather than just a game. It is amazing to see 90% of the crowd wearing Eagle garb and actually standing up to cheer.

I took my Mom to the N. Colorado game for the first time in a couple years and she was shocked at how much the atmosphere has improved. I would say that every game this year has been a near sellout and I don't see that changing as long as we keep winning. It is also awesome to see the waves of students making there way up to the stadium and cheering like crazy all the way through the game.

I can see a real need for stadium expansion for the first time.

 

[clawman1]

The track has GOT TO GO!!
Sac State is a good example, they have a nice stadium but the field is surrounded by a large track and it seems like I am in Husky stadium we were so far from the field and you could not really hear the home fans. Not an exciting atmosphee like you get in Missoula. Don't know how that all works with the new field in place already but if we want to have a quality environemtn for decades to come...the track has GOT TO GO!!

 

[EWURanger]

Don't know how that all works with the new field in place already but if we want to have a quality environment for decades to come...the track has GOT TO GO!!

On the track, I think the only way to do it is to lower the field about 10-20 ft. and then place smaller grand-stands to fill the space. That would improve the sight-lines quite a bit.

I saw some pictures in the Spokesman today which showed Martin Stadium circa-1950's, and today. It originally had a track around it, and in the 70's they removed the track and then bowled out the existing grand-stands on one side. I'd post pics, but I can't link them for some reason.

http://www.spokesman.com/then-and-now/martin-stadium-wsu/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Removing the track may happen some day, but IMO it shouldn't be the main priority until we have a somewhat symmetrical looking stadium, so the priorities should be replay board, and then East side stands. The East side stands could still be small-ish, but should be expandable so in 20 years from now we could do that if needed. For the South End-Zone, maybe a "bowled-in" look similar to what App State has. Or maybe we don't need any seats in the south end-zone at all and just continue to develop the concessions and beer garden stuff they have going on there. App State's "away" stands are pretty nice, although we probably don't need anything that big at the moment.

 

[VikThunder]

Note that Boise State is planning on removing the track from their stadium also.

 

[eaglesfootball]

i believe removing the track is also part of the UW rennovation plan.

 

[EWURanger]

Does anyone know what the plans are for the south endzone concession stand building? I noticed they tore the roof off about a month ago, but nothing has been done since. Also, some of the dirt behind the building is dug up....just curious if anyone knew what they were planning?

Forgot to post this a while back, but I am sure everyone has seen it by now.

 

[clawman1]

i believe removing the track is also part of the UW rennovation plan.

According to the fan I was sitting next to at the Husky game this fall that is correct. They are going to lower the field and add seating where the track was.

 

[kalm]

i believe removing the track is also part of the UW rennovation plan.

According to the fan I was sitting next to at the Husky game this fall that is correct. They are going to lower the field and add seating where the track was.

Which again, is exactly what needs to happen at Roos. It would also potentially increase parking on the east side. :nod:

 

[EWURanger]

i believe removing the track is also part of the UW rennovation plan.

According to the fan I was sitting next to at the Husky game this fall that is correct. They are going to lower the field and add seating where the track was.

It would also potentially increase parking on the east side. :nod:

Maybe. If they removed the track and then built permanent stands closer to the field, then it might increase parking area. But I also have to think that if they want to leave room for further expansions 20 years down the road, then there might actually be less parking there.

The only thing that would be kind of weird about doing the above is you'd have the East stands close to the field and then the gap between the field and the west stands. Might look strange. And I seriously hope we don't have to wait 9 or so more years until the Sprinturf has to be replaced to then remove the track and move the whole thing closer to the West stands!!!

What I hope happens is that they start off with a new scoreboard, then build permanent seats on the east side.......then at some point down the road when they are thinking about track removal, they just remove it, lower it, and then add addition seating on both east and west side to fill in the gaps where they lowered the field. This makes more sense than moving the entire field west. :nod:

 

[Spoeagle]

I agree with your renovation ideas, Ranger, but also if they want 10,000+ crowds shoudn't they be doing something about the parking problem? Now it looks like the two nearest parking lots will be for tailgaters, and fans will be expected to park a mile down Washington or where else and walk to the stadium? At one time they used the high school parking lot and shuttled fans.

 

[EWURanger]

I agree with your renovation ideas, Ranger, but also if they want 10,000+ crowds shouldn't they be doing something about the parking problem? Now it looks like the two nearest parking lots will be for tailgaters, and fans will be expected to park a mile down Washington or where else and walk to the stadium? At one time they used the high school parking lot and shuttled fans.

I absolutely agree, and there's a fairly simple solution to this problem - expanding the upper parking lots. The big problem with the stadium and surrounding infrastructure is that it was built in 1967 when Eastern was still an NAIA school and never really had to deal with large crowds. It's only really now that the football program has had several years of success that we have these "problems". Don't get me wrong, these are good problems to have, but I agree that the parking situation needs to be addressed. By expanding the upper parking lots, it would solve not only the parking problems on football game-day, but also address the additional needs of parking on campus in general. Eastern has now over 12,000 students, and parking issues will only increase as the student body expands, which is very likely. It's not out of the question for Eastern to be a school of 14-15,000 by 2020 or so. There's plenty of land behind the upper parking lots, near where the practice fields and whatnot are, so just use that. I'm fairly certain the University owns it anyway.

 

[LDopaPDX]

Ranger is right, the upper lot can easily be expanded... it just has to be graded and paved above the watertower.

That said, the bithcing about parking is kinda ridiculous. Ever been to the Rose Bowl? Chances are you're walking for 3 miles to get to the venue. That's just how it goes at most stadiums. Our fans are a little lazy if they can't handle walking from Sutton Park.

 

[Spoeagle]

I believe there are a lot of people who don't attend Eastern football because of the parking. If the upper lot can be expanded easily, in my opinion it would be ridiculous not to have it done before next season.

 

[kalm]

I believe there are a lot of people who don't attend Eastern football because of the parking. If the upper lot can be expanded easily, in my opinion it would be ridiculous not to have it done before next season.

Parking is not an issue for me personally as I have an RV spot up top. Besides, I would walk 16 miles, uphill, backwards, through snow to watch my beloved eagles play. But the casual fans might get tired of it. What's more, if you host a tailgate party and invite every single person you know, after awhile you get tired of explaining the parking situation with the drop offs and what have you and end up saying 'just show up and I'll provide the food and hooch.' :mrgreen:

Ranger, I like you're ideas with the parking and the long term plan. It's more realistic to first put in the east side grandstand and worry about removing the track, dropping the field, and filling in later. It just seems like if you're gonna go to the work of construction now it would be easier to make it right from the start by removing the track. I can't remember your projections for capacity, but if the East side grand stand matched the West I bet you could still get to a 20,000 + stadium by extending the grandstands to the goal lines and filling in the corners and both end zones.

I want it all now dammit.

 

[clawman1]

I believe there are a lot of people who don't attend Eastern football because of the parking. If the upper lot can be expanded easily, in my opinion it would be ridiculous not to have it done before next season.

Obviously you have not been to a WSU game. As the stadium is expanded and the new building on the east side eliminates parking stalls it will only get worse. The bare land on the west side is largely owned by someone else so not an option for expansion.

 

[LDopaPDX]

Somebody with a background in large-scale construction can probably add more to this, but my understanding is that it costs about $1m per 10 ft. of digging and grading to start a one-block sized building. In other words, four sub-level floors equals $4m.

To remove the track, it would require 20 feet of digging and grading (about 2 floors), but the sheer scale of digging that much would probably double and maybe even triple the cost. And that's assuming you don't hit a bunch of bedrock that needs to be blasted out. Final cost just for eliminating the track--- somewhere between $4 and 6m.

That probably represents 2x what we want to spend on the new grandstand, and that is before we'd actually do any building. As much as every football fan would like to remove the track, I seriously doubt that is a legitimate option.

 

[LDopaPDX]

Somebody with a background in large-scale construction can probably add more to this, but my understanding is that it costs about $1m per 10 ft. of digging and grading to start a one-block sized building. In other words, four sub-level floors equals $4m.

To remove the track, it would require 20 feet of digging and grading (about 2 floors), but the sheer scale of digging that much would probably double and maybe even triple the cost. And that's assuming you don't hit a bunch of bedrock that needs to be blasted out. Final cost just for eliminating the track--- somewhere between $4 and 6m.

That probably represents 2x what we want to spend on the new grandstand, and that is before we'd actually do any building. As much as every football fan would like to remove the track, I seriously doubt that is a legitimate option.

FWIW, the only other option would be to pick up and move the field about 30 ft. to the inside wall of the current grandstand. I'd suppose that would be the cheaper option, but considering we just laid the field, it would seem equally unlikely to disregard what we've already spent. I know it would go down as sunk cost and all of that, but that would be hard to sell to donors and the university.

 

[kalm]

Somebody with a background in large-scale construction can probably add more to this, but my understanding is that it costs about $1m per 10 ft. of digging and grading to start a one-block sized building. In other words, four sub-level floors equals $4m.

To remove the track, it would require 20 feet of digging and grading (about 2 floors), but the sheer scale of digging that much would probably double and maybe even triple the cost. And that's assuming you don't hit a bunch of bedrock that needs to be blasted out. Final cost just for eliminating the track--- somewhere between $4 and 6m.

That probably represents 2x what we want to spend on the new grandstand, and that is before we'd actually do any building. As much as every football fan would like to remove the track, I seriously doubt that is a legitimate option.

FWIW, the only other option would be to pick up and move the field about 30 ft. to the inside wall of the current grandstand. I'd suppose that would be the cheaper option, but considering we just laid the field, it would seem equally unlikely to disregard what we've already spent. I know it would go down as sunk cost and all of that, but that would be hard to sell to donors and the university.

Good points Dopa.

 

[clawman1]

Somebody with a background in large-scale construction can probably add more to this, but my understanding is that it costs about $1m per 10 ft. of digging and grading to start a one-block sized building. In other words, four sub-level floors equals $4m.

To remove the track, it would require 20 feet of digging and grading (about 2 floors), but the sheer scale of digging that much would probably double and maybe even triple the cost. And that's assuming you don't hit a bunch of bedrock that needs to be blasted out. Final cost just for eliminating the track--- somewhere between $4 and 6m.

That probably represents 2x what we want to spend on the new grandstand, and that is before we'd actually do any building. As much as every football fan would like to remove the track, I seriously doubt that is a legitimate option.

FWIW, the only other option would be to pick up and move the field about 30 ft. to the inside wall of the current grandstand. I'd suppose that would be the cheaper option, but considering we just laid the field, it would seem equally unlikely to disregard what we've already spent. I know it would go down as sunk cost and all of that, but that would be hard to sell to donors and the university.

Especially considering that the major cost of the field project was the preparation and dirt work, not the field turf itself.