Does anybody know what they are doing to the stadium if they can't take it down till after the 2004 season. I sure am glad I sit in the Southeast so I do not have to go over there.
i believe the plan all along was to take it down after the 2004 season...the work thus far is just in preparation.
They are driving a ton of concrete piles and they took down the esclator so like Lump said all the preparation so that they can take off the deck as soon as we finish playing our last home game.
They took down the esclator. Man that is going to piss off some folks walking up those steps next year. :shock:
they're putting in temp construction elevators for the games. somehow it just doesn't make that much sense to me. how many days did it take to take the elevators down? how much does it cost for the temp elevators. i don't understand the logic there.
The escalator was a heap. Leaked like a sieve, broke down all of the time and was expensive to maintain. That's one reason why there will be no escalators in the new deck, just ramps and elevators. The current upper deck seating and press box will be removed immediately following the last 2004 home game. The existing ramps will be retained. The pile driving is for the new superstructure now being built in front of the ramps where the elevators will be. The new deck, with three press box and club levels, is scheduled to be ready for the first home game of 2005. I'll believe it when I see it.
I have heard that capacity will not change much plus or minus. The idea was to increase the number of club seats, I do not know how much it will affect the amount of seats on the actual deck. Hopefully everyone will be able to keep their seats either way. I am with you Red I will have to see it to believe it that they will put that big boy up in less than 365 days.
http://www.lsusports.net/ad/sportlink.cfm?pagecode=fb-tigerstadium Construction is currently underway for a $60 million renovation to the west side of the stadium that will add 3,255 special amenity seats as a well as a state-of-the-art press box to Tiger Stadium. The west side renovation, which includes the removal and rebuilding of the upper deck to mirror the east side upper deck, is scheduled to be completed for the 2005 season. They'll get it done ... you can bet your last dime on it ... I just wish they'd quit dicking around and do it ... you know this renovation is just a simple plan for the future construction of a horseshoe or full encirclement and joining of east and west ... where they connect one or both of the end zones ... what a magnificent day that will be ... 100,000+ howling Tiger fans ... I hope to live to see it
Only about 800 new seats will be added to total capacity. The emphasis is on more premium seats with high surcharges. I don't think the South End Zone upper deck will ever happen. South Stadium Drive, an importrant campus thouroughfare, would have to be closed. A North End Zone upper deck would also close a street and seriously impinge on the PMAC. More importantly, LSU is not really interested in further expansion. There have been empty seats in the upper decks for most games, even last year. There will never be enough demand for endzone seats to fill an "upper bowl". It would just never pay for itself. The problem is that the lower bowl at LSU is huge! Those upper deck endzone seats are just too far from the field, people won't pay for that poor a view, not with so many TV games. The higher parts of the present sideline upper decks are very poor seats that people avoid if they can. Complicating the situation is that the original sections of the stadium are over 80 years old, have dark and narrow ramp areas, and have some real structural issues that will eventually require their replacement. The entire lower bowl will have to be replaced before any further expansion can be considered. Joe Dean did an estimate on that job once and found that it would be far cheaper to go over to river road and build a new 100,000-seat Tiger stadium.
