Gies Memorial Stadium

Dkayak said:

Would you trade better stadium access for 7 football games for impeded SFC access for 19 basketball games (plus other events)? This reroute would consume a lot of SFC parking too. Kirby would still need to be closed on football days to allow fans parked south of your reroute to cross to the stadium. If instead you rely on lengthy and frequent crossings aided by traffic police, the rerouted Kirby wouldn’t carry enough traffic to be useful. That’s one reason it’s closed for football games today.

However, the bigger question is what problem are we trying to solve? Why doesn’t today’s Kirby setup work just fine? I still don’t understand the Kirby problem.

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I'm not worried about finding replacement parking for SFC. There are plenty of strategies that could be implemented to maintain the current count.

Kirby is too close to the stadium and it greatly limits what can be done to improve the SEZ. More room to work with adjacent to the stadium would give a lot more design flexibility.

the Castle on Daniel said:

I'm not worried about finding replacement parking for SFC. There are plenty of strategies that could be implemented to maintain the current count.

Kirby is too close to the stadium and it greatly limits what can be done to improve the SEZ. More room to work with adjacent to the stadium would give a lot more design flexibility.

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Seats as far back as Kirby would be too far from the field, 80-90 yards from the south goal line (and nearly 200 yards from the north one). Look at your overhead photo. Kirby isn’t nearly close enough to see the game. IMO they’d be terrible seats, tough to sell, and wouldn’t generate much revenue.

In addition, doing anything requiring Kirby’s space would now require moving our new, massive scoreboard. That won’t happen. @Fighter of the Nightman offered some great concepts for using the space on either side of the scoreboard, but nothing with Kirby’s setback. Go up, not south. Stay reasonably close to the field with decent sight lines.

Dkayak said:

Seats as far back as Kirby would be too far from the field, 80-90 yards from the south goal line (and nearly 200 yards from the north one). Look at your overhead photo. Kirby isn’t nearly close enough to see the game. IMO they’d be terrible seats, tough to sell, and wouldn’t generate much revenue.

In addition, doing anything requiring Kirby’s space would now require moving our new, massive scoreboard. That won’t happen. @Fighter of the Nightman offered some great concepts for using the space on either side of the scoreboard, but nothing with Kirby’s setback. Go up, not south. Stay reasonably close to the field with decent sight lines.

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There don't have to be seats back that far. The space can be programmed countless ways and grants way more design flexibility...which is necessary to protect the historic architecture of MS. My preference is to maintain the height of the E/W balconies in the SEZ, even if the seating isn't tiered the same. Regardless, reconfiguring Kirby would be (by far) the most minor part of the SEZ refresh scope.

Take a look at the red lines encompassing the four towers.



Why does the Horsehoe sit so far beyond the stadium boundaries today? It was only put back so far from the field to accommodate a long-gone oval track. How does extending this already unnatural appendage even further beyond the stadium itself “protect the historic architecture”? At the same time it would damage the SFC site symmetry. But again, for what purpose? I really don’t understand the problem you’re trying to fix. Why do we need this additional space? Did our planners overlook something?

To look at it another way, if there was no Horseshoe and we needed to finish the stadium, would we put anything as far south as Kirby? No, we’d build further north and up.

To proceed you’d still have to address the issue of moving our massive new scoreboard. This is a non-starter in the absence of an extremely compelling need to move toward Kirby. We can be sure such a move was ruled out before committing to the new scoreboard, which now defines the southern limit of the stadium.

^^ As one of the most passionate Horseshoe haters around, I frickin' love that visual. It really puts into perspective how an otherwise architecturally magnificent stadium just ruins itself on only one side, haha. The red box you drew is the "natural" framework of our stadium. If anything extends beyond that box (e.g., the very last couple rows of the NEZ student section), it should only ever be because we have used up all of the space in front of it. Meanwhile, the middle of the first row of the Horseshoe literally STARTS behind it!

Also just as sort of a funny visual, look if you took Kinnick Stadium - a stadium that most, whether Hawkeye haters or Hawkeye lovers, admit is just a good venue for college football - had its seats adjusted to be more like the Horseshoe.

Current Kinnick Stadium


Horseshoe-Like Kinnick Stadium


It looks ridiculous because it is, and I honestly might have undershot it. Working the other way in an adjustment that would fix our problem, even just the closing in of this space with ZERO other improvements to the Horseshoe would at least make it look like we didn't stop working on the stadium 75% of the way through.

Current Memorial Stadium


Fixed Memorial Stadium


That SEZ structure looks comparatively huge, because I think we all actually underestimate how absurdly far away the Horseshoe is, because we compare it to the distance on the sidelines ... but our sideline seats are ALSO an absurd distance from the action compared to a place like Kinnick! If you actually bring the Horseshoe down closer to a Kinnick level in the end zone, it really shows how much wasted space we have and what a bizarrely inefficient seating structure the Horseshoe is.

As a reminder ... the north end zone seats on the top of the Kinnick picture has the same capacity as our current Horseshoe ... let that sink in, lol.

I'm taking the measurements off Google Maps, but the Horseshoe is anywhere from 60-75ft from Kirby. An additional 50ft could make all the difference regarding design concepts. Reconfiguring Kirby may not be necessary, but shifting the roadway south isn't a major undertaking. Especially since it could be done without closing the existing roadway or a loss of parking. Viewing its current alignment as sacred is a self-imposed limitation.

The current design is the way it is because there was a track surrounding the field.

the Castle on Daniel said:

I'm taking the measurements off Google Maps, but the Horseshoe is anywhere from 60-75ft from Kirby. An additional 50ft could make all the difference regarding design concepts. Reconfiguring Kirby may not be necessary, but shifting the roadway south isn't a major undertaking. Especially since it could be done without closing the existing roadway or a loss of parking. Viewing its current alignment as sacred is a self-imposed limitation.

The current design is the way it is because there was a track surrounding the field.

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I dont think you can just hand wave away a shift in a major roadway like that as not a big deal because it absolutely is. They have closed two lanes on Prospect for curb repairs and people are LOSING THEIR MINDS over it. There's also the fact that you are introducing some potentially unsafe variables by having a curving road at a major traffic point. Just a quick look shows data by the USDOT that 25% of fatal crashes are associated with roadway curves and that the rate of crashes is 3 time higher than straight sections. Not nearly enough incentive for the city or university to make the change.