Well, they have completed the demolition part of the project and they dismantled the 1,500-ton crane and one of the 30-ton cranes. Now things are only going up.
There has been a steady stream of concrete trucks this week and the tallest concrete pump I've ever seen.
Do you think there are intentions of enclosing the south endzone with an upper deck? Something like a horseshoe upper is what I imagine. That could bring capacity to around 115,000 :wink:
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 many games, even in 2003. There will likely 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. 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. 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. People paying those $400 sideline surcharges are demanding a better environment than the small, poorly lit ramp, restroom, and concession areas they are barely tolerating right now.
In a related story, I'm going to shamelessly plug my other thread about the stadium deconstructed pieces since it will probably be on the 2nd page in a few minutes :hihi: http://www.tigerforums.com/showthread.php?t=25386
Red, thanks for these updates. I too look forward to them. Living up in North Louisiana we don't get to see the progress being made very often.
If it's the pump I'm thinking of, I know what you're talking about. They rent it out from Teague, and you can back three 8-yard trucks up to the hopper simultaneously...it pumps about 100 cubic yards of concrete per hour. I once watched it pump out 500 yards one morning when we poured the parking garage decks at Woman's Hospital, back in the early 90's.
