Gies Memorial Stadium

Illinisam said:

Was it Lovie who made the decision to not have the south endzone remodel? I think they were smart to place it exactly where it is now connected to the Indoor practice facility. My question is why do you think Guenther put the weight room under the North Endzone bleachers instead of just adding to the indoor practice facility? I wonder if that weight room design limited what the north endzone seating are could have become, especially on both sides of the current seating areas. I know that weight room is used by the other Illinois athletes, but it seems like a better plan might have prevented the redundancy of two weight rooms near MS. Just seems like the north endzone space could have been better utilized. Wonder what Josh would have done that Guenther didn’t.

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My momory is that the weight room was placed in the north endzone in 2008. The Smith Center wouldn't be built for another decade.

Looking at these pictures of the scoreboard and how "planted" or "permanent" it looks, it got me thinking that the future of the SEZ seems to most likely involve...

A) Leaving the new scoreboard as is.
B) Because of (A), leaving the back of the SEZ stands as is.
(C) Because of (C), all renovations to the SEZ stands would either go up (e.g., a balcony either side of the scoreboard), go forward (i.e., fill in the gap in front of the current Horseshoe) or do both ... but it will not go "back" toward the street at all.

I tried to get Chat GPT to enlarge the scoreboard to match the size of the new one, bring the SEZ stands down to field level and then add a small balcony on either side of the scoreboard with architecture that matched the rest of the stadium. It went a little wild and probably designed something too grand for the DIA's appetite for an SEZ renovation (for example, on the third edit it transported the scoreboard way up higher into the air, lol...), but I thought I would share anyway.



I think any version of this type of thing we might get would instead build around the scoreboard, so imagine both the balcony and the scoreboard lower and probably only additional seats on either side of the scoreboard.

IllinoisMan said:

I drive by every day - it's really looking huge! Having said that, I realized yesterday that some/all of those mature trees are...probably going to be cut down? The press release said:

Even if those occupy something like the upper 30 ft of this 69 ft scoreboard it seems unlikely that someone standing on the sidewalk/street would have an unobstructed view. Perhaps they'll be on the "wings" though, in which case maybe the more central trees would survive? Though the fact that none have been taken yet might say something because they're literally right in the middle of the ongoing construction.

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The trees have already been cut down that are going to be cut down. Rosenthal wrote a tribute and had a service for the "trees" when it happened.

Trees are all coming down. So is the brick wall along kirby.

hhoene said:

Trees are all coming down. So is the brick wall along kirby.

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This year?

fuddrules said:

The trees have already been cut down that are going to be cut down. Rosenthal wrote a tribute and had a service for the "trees" when it happened.

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I think you're thinking of the pine trees about a year ago. There are existing trees right next to the road and are mostly/all Northern Red Oak according to the Campus Tree Inventory. I looked again as I drove home and from the road one doesn't really get an unobstructed view of the scoreboard structure for nearly the entire First to Fourth span. If all of those trees remained then one would have to be standing well into the State Farm Center lot to get a clear look. I took a pic from my car to show what it looks like from the street side - I was approximately even with the middle of Grange Grove when I took it.

IllinoisMan said:

I think you're thinking of the pine trees about a year ago. There are existing trees right next to the road and are mostly/all Northern Red Oak according to the Campus Tree Inventory. I looked again as I drove home and from the road one doesn't really get an unobstructed view of the scoreboard structure for nearly the entire First to Fourth span. If all of those trees remained then one would have to be standing well into the State Farm Center lot to get a clear look. I took a pic from my car to show what it looks like from the street side - I was approximately even with the middle of Grange Grove when I took it.

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You may be right. Just seems odd the trees stay through construction and then get removed at the end.

I've always thought that area back there could be expanded into a beer garden or family garden type area with some proper excavation. But that wouldn't have anything to do with the Kirby trees.

Once the board is up the trees will come down.

Apparently they tried to do both at the same time. That would have been a nightmare of logistics for that much to be happening at one time in a small space.

I'm sure the construction guys are also wondering why the trees couldn't come down first. Would've made their job easier instead of having to work around the trees.

Not sure when the brick wall comes down.

I heard some of the designs for the area below the board are still undecided.