Gies Memorial Stadium
I highly doubt they ever seriously consider lowering the field . it would be a multi year project and I don’t see them playing 5-6 home games in Chicago .
maybe at some point in the future they re-do both end zones to make space for seats, suites & family areas . I kinda doubt it though.
will the change East Main & lose 7000 seats ?
highly doubt it
will they at some point fix the horseshoe - likely but not soon
will they change NEZ ? not likely
maybe at some point in the future they re-do both end zones to make space for seats, suites & family areas . I kinda doubt it though.
will the change East Main & lose 7000 seats ?
highly doubt it
will they at some point fix the horseshoe - likely but not soon
will they change NEZ ? not likely
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
They could save a lot of money if @Fighter of the Nightman would sell his plans cheap.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
He’ll even throw in his uniform mock ups, no extra charge,
But what problem does an overpass solve, compared to simply closing Kirby for 7 game days? It’s already closed for many reasons beyond pedestrians entering and leaving the stadium.
The ISU situation looks like a higher speed highway located much further from the stadium. The ramped overpass is very long and ends at midfield, from where it’s apparently easy to walk around the entire stadium. Our stadium isn’t easily circumnavigated on foot, inside or outside. Dumping a big crowd into the Horseshoe wouldn’t work. You’d need to feed both the east and west entrances. Running a ramp down only one side leaves those seated on the other side stranded, so you’d need a ramp for each side. We’d then scan tickets at each doorway? Today you secure only the four corners and Grange Grove, a pretty simple setup.
How much traffic could Kirby possibly carry if it could be opened on game days? Best case is you’d have police directing traffic moving at a crawl.
Last edited:
While the horseshoe is not optimal, I think they could make it pretty great by adding some club or area at the field level to bring things closer to the actual playing field, and add a beer garden type of area behind it under the scoreboard (I think they are doing something like this, but not sure how final it will be). They are doing something like this at the Rose Bowl I think:
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Been so busy at work lately but I have a slower day and it's time I return for a classic, super long Loyalty post!
I've been having so much fun with Chat GPT pretty much trying to create the coolest / most aesthetically pleasing option possible that ALSO remains pretty unambitious ... I guess you could say I have grown pessimistic that we will get anything close to the beauty of that original 2016 rendering, haha. And I think your top picture is exactly that, or at least the first stages of it ... but we could reasonably hope for a little bit more, too.
In order of feasibility, I would say the SEZ steps that would still be considered "good enough" but still short of something transformative would be the following ... again, very much in order, and I will use your photos.
Status Quo: Current Memorial Stadium. The Horseshoe remains an eyesore on an otherwise majestic stadium, at least IMO and in the opinion of most non-Illini fans I have taken to Memorial Stadium. An Iowa friend of mine once said that the east / west sides of our stadium look Blue-Blood worthy, and the south side looks like a MAC program that ran out of money ... that quote has stuck with me, and I think it's right on the money. The following pictures will aim to fix each major issue in order of how easy it is.
Fix #1: Larger Scoreboard. Congrats, we already did this, CHECK!! This doesn't just look really good and give us more of a "big boy program feel," it also helps close at least some of the empty space that lets too much noise escape out of the SEZ and gives that side of the stadium an incomplete look. NOTE - In your photo, it looks like the scoreboard is noticeably larger than it will be in real life ... I am scaling it down, because this will be important for my #3, as we will have a lot more room to work with on either side of the scoreboard than in the version you posted. Yours looks a lot better than mine, though, so props.
Fix #2: Bring Horseshoe to Ground Level. This is SO easy and goes a long way toward (A) improving homefield advantage by getting fans right on top of the field, (B) improving fan experience by improving views and reducing distance from the action and (C) doing SO much by doing so little to improve the one objectively ugly part of a beautiful stadium by eliminating that ugly and comically large gap of unused grass. This should have been done years ago, and it MUST happen with any renovation. Again, I like the shape of yours better!
However, I had to go in order!One note on this one is that I think AI sort of distorted the angle in the photo edit, but filling in that gap would make the SEZ stands look a LOT bigger than they currently do, and this rendering likely doesn't do that justice ... if you look at any photo of the Horseshoe at the right angle and fill in seats to bring it to ground level, the difference is SUPER noticeable, as I have posted many times before! So, use your imagination here, I guess!
----- This is where your photos effectively stopped. -----
Fix #3: Add Revenue-Generating Seats. It would be relatively simple and likely worth the financial investment to add some suites or something that could be sold at a higher price on either side of the scoreboard, and this could be done in conjunction with whatever renovations would happen to the area behind the SEZ. Honestly, at this point you have enough height, no wasted space and enough architectural consistency / completeness that I think it makes the stadium look "complete."
Fix #4: Add Balcony Seating to the SEZ. This would just really tie the stadium together in a complete way so that the SEZ feels no less grand than the east / west sides, IMO. You wouldn't want to overdo it, and I admit that the proportions of these renderings is making it kind of difficult to not go too high above the towers ... but imagination is once again needed!
Honestly, this would be a home run and would instantly turn Memorial Stadium into what it always should have been if the Horseshoe hadn't remained an eyesore - an absolute must-visit cathedral of the sport and the Wrigley Field of College Football. Yes, the Horseshoe is that bad that it holds our stadium's reputation back that far, lol... I'm as desperate as anyone alive for GMS to realize its full potential. I absolutely love that every time I bring a friend to Wrigley for the first time, he is blown away by the history and unique atmosphere and instantly "gets it" ... that makes me proud as a Cubs fan. And I shall not rest until Memorial Stadium can achieve the same type of unique appreciation that it deserves in the college football world, and we are NOT that far away from getting to that point if a renovation is done right!!
P.S. Bonus #5: Make East Balcony Match West Balcony...
I can already hear some fans saying we could not justify the extra capacity (at least as of now), so here is your fix there that I have complained about a lot in the past! First of all, I am not sure how many seats are really being added from those renderings ... the added seats in front of the Horseshoe plus the upper deck REALLY don't add up to that much in capacity, IMO. With that said, if you want more seating to work with, wall off the seats under the east balcony overhang.
Chat GPT is having a really hard time rendering that, but it was once posted here that there are SEVEN THOUSAND seats underneath the east balcony that are effectively "invisible" as far as our stadium goes. I get that people like shade from the sun and rain and whatever, but let's face it, guys ... there is a reason absolutely no new stadiums are ever built with seats underneath the upper deck. It's just not a good setup. And I think there are three super important reasons why "walling them off" would be a good idea.
(1) It is often said that the west side concourse is far superior to the east side one ... I have to imagine that removing those seats and reconfiguring that area would give us a lot of room with which to work to improve the concourse setup on the west side!
(2) One of the most beautiful things about the pre-2006-renovation of Memorial Stadium was its symmetry. When we put in a brick wall between West Main and the West Balcony and then threw a press box on top to make the West Balcony SO much smaller than the East Balcony ... we massacred that symmetry, lol. Creating a brick wall setup on the east side to match the west side would go a long way toward restoring that classic symmetrical look, IMO.
(3) If there really are 7,000 seats underneath the East Balcony overhang, that gives us a TON of capacity with which to work in the SEZ. I'll leave the math estimates up to someone else, but if you (A) subtract 7,000 seats from East Main, (B) add some number of seats in front of the Horseshoe and (C) add luxury suites and a balcony behind the Horseshoe on either side of the scoreboard ... I will bet nearly anything that you will actually end up with a capacity REDUCTION overall. And that outcome both avoids making the stadium too big to sell out but also leaves room for future cool ideas on the north side!
Attachments
The seats under the East Balconey have another edge over the Horseshoe, at least to me. They offer proximity and perspective. Maybe part of it is my lack of stereo vision and therefore depth perspective, but I’d rather watch the game on TV than from so far behind the end zone at such a flat angle. The NEZ perspective is so much better.