Cajun Field 1971...

[Cajunfanatico]

Check your PM Basinbear.

[BirdofParadise]

Jay, is locker room renovation included in this?

Baseball? No. Tony said he'd rather spend more money on making the park fan friendly and they would take care of the locker room at a later date.

[LaCajunsFan]

Okay, we have two threads going at once. Damn near gave me a headache.

FOOTBALL--The upper deck on the west side will be torn down and replaced by a new upper addition that will house a new press box, suites and a club level. It will be seven stories...three visible to the public from inside the stadium. Sports info office and athletic administration offices will be housed in that structure. The ground floor, accessible from the west side of the stadium will have a ticket office, a merchandise store and a Hall of Fame. The plan has been to add an upper deck on the east side, but I don't know if that has been etched in stone.

If the new structure is like the new one that have at Arkansas State, it will be impressive. But I think ours will be even better.

BASEBALL

I just saw the new drawings yesterday. I also saw the blueprints. The left field and right field lines will be changed minimally, if at all. There will still be the box seats. The cooking club remains.

The change is in the grandstand area. It will be torn down completely. If you can imagine, the grandstand area will begin roughly where the ticket office is now. There will be entrances on both the first and third base side. The grandstand will be raised to be even with the bleachers on the first and third base side. There will still be box seats behind home plate and down first and third, but fans will step down to those seats. The concourse in the grandstand will be between the box seats and the chairbacks. There will be a club level for certain level donors and the suites/press box will be above that. The press box will actually start just to the third base side of home plate and head down the third base line, leaving the area down the first base line and behind home plate for suites. By putting suites directly behind home plate, you can sell them for more than if they were down the third base side. The press box will have a separate area for TV, two radio booths and the general press area. The suites and club level should generate in the vicinity of $200,000 annually in revenue.

Because Robe wants to make the park fan friendly, the concession areas under the concourse will have an area where fans can still see game action while waiting in line, much as they do at LSU. That's why the big gap between the lower box seats and the grandstand. In addition, there will be overhangs built over the bleachers down the first and third base line. Based on what I've seen, they will cover about 2/3 of each bleacher area, much like the current overhang of the grandstand.

Previous reports that the renovations are $1 million more than planned are correct. They would rather raise additional funds than make cuts.

The latest drawing is pretty new. To answer the question of "when do we get to see it," they still have to have another meeting or two to finalize. I have already started to work on an article for "Geaux Cajuns" magazine giving more details and updates on the progress of the plans. That article, which will probably be in the magazine for the Troy game, should include the latest rendering.

I'm pretty impressed, based on what I've seen, that this is going to get done for 10-11 million. I think we're getting a lot of bang for the buck

Great post...thanks, Jay.

[LaCajunsFan]

Baseball? No. Tony said he'd rather spend more money on making the park fan friendly and they would take care of the locker room at a later date.

Also, is there an update on what the new capacity will be for baseball??

[basinbear]

Baseball? No. Tony said he'd rather spend more money on making the park fan friendly and they would take care of the locker room at a later date.

Thanks....

[RedCajun]

Here is a picture of the UCF stadium which seats 45,000 and was built at a cost of $60M. UCF opened their stadium with Texas. This gives a better look at what Cajun Field would look like bowled as it is difficult to compare to a 100,000 seat stadium. A bowled Cajun Field would seat about 40,000 with suites. That would hold us for years until we needed to expand again (University of Houston just built a new 40,000 seat stadium). By not adding a new upper deck on the west side and a smaller upper deck on the east side, it would appear to save us millions in costs and greatly reduce the amount of money we would need to raise to start this project and get this completed on a shorter time line. A bowled stadium creates a much better game day atmosphere and gives the look of a big time stadium. Picture stepping into Cajun Field looking like this. Maybe UL needs to go back to the drawing board. Can't wait around another 5-10 years to build. We need to be ready when a conference realignment opportunity hits us. Once baseball is completed within the next 2 years, we will have new facilities in every sport, including renovations to the CajunDome, except football.

Nice stadium, but evidently they don't draw too well these days

The crowd before the #Houston vs #UCF game in Orlando..... pic.twitter.com/llYyfD7Xcn

— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) October 24, 2015

[LaCajunsFan]

Those that REALLY want to donate can easily do so. Those that can't figure it out don't really want to donate and just want to blame the administration for something else they percieve as another deficiency.

So, are you saying that we would not collect more if we laid out two versions of the stadium, so folks could see how much the more expensive one had to offer?

I say if we did that the 'extra' amount would be collected lickety-split.

[cajun4life]

Nice stadium, but evidently they don't draw too well these days

The crowd before the #Houston vs #UCF game in Orlando..... pic.twitter.com/llYyfD7Xcn

— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) October 24, 2015

That's what Cajun Field will look like Saturday.

[BirdofParadise]

There are some details that would be out of place for me to talk about now. But by the Troy game, hopefully it'll all be good. I don't think I'm speaking out of school based on what I've seen.

I haven't gotten the number on capacity. There have been a lot of guesses on this board, but I haven't asked that question.

Actually, virtually everything I have posted has been talked about on this board before. If you go back to the spring when articles were written, "fan friendly" "sight lines" and the like were mentioned.

The press box configuration is the only new thing. And that doesn't affect anyone, really.

Now, the drawings themselves? Pretty awesome.

[HoustonCajun]

Originally Posted by RedCajun View Post

Nice stadium, but evidently they don't draw too well these days



The crowd before the #Houston vs #UCF game in Orlando..... That's what Cajun Field will look like Saturday.


UCF is 0-7 and their coach just resigned. Fans were expecting a banner year there and things fell apart.

[RedCajun]

Originally Posted by RedCajun View Post

Nice stadium, but evidently they don't draw too well these days



The crowd before the #Houston vs #UCF game in Orlando..... That's what Cajun Field will look like Saturday.


UCF is 0-7 and their coach just resigned. Fans were expecting a banner year there and things fell apart.

Definitely. I saw that tweet online earlier this morning and found it interesting given this thread. Your ideas regarding renovations do have merit and their stadium layout is nice.


* Is the tweet pic coming up? It shows up for me on the mobile version of RP, but not the desktop and for some reason the post is locked to where I cant fix it

[CajunAmos]

Okay, we have two threads going at once. Damn near gave me a headache.

FOOTBALL--The upper deck on the west side will be torn down and replaced by a new upper addition that will house a new press box, suites and a club level. It will be seven stories...three visible to the public from inside the stadium. Sports info office and athletic administration offices will be housed in that structure. The ground floor, accessible from the west side of the stadium will have a ticket office, a merchandise store and a Hall of Fame. The plan has been to add an upper deck on the east side, but I don't know if that has been etched in stone.

If the new structure is like the new one that have at Arkansas State, it will be impressive. But I think ours will be even better.

BASEBALL

I just saw the new drawings yesterday. I also saw the blueprints. The left field and right field lines will be changed minimally, if at all. There will still be the box seats. The cooking club remains.

The change is in the grandstand area. It will be torn down completely. If you can imagine, the grandstand area will begin roughly where the ticket office is now. There will be entrances on both the first and third base side. The grandstand will be raised to be even with the bleachers on the first and third base side. There will still be box seats behind home plate and down first and third, but fans will step down to those seats. The concourse in the grandstand will be between the box seats and the chairbacks. There will be a club level for certain level donors and the suites/press box will be above that. The press box will actually start just to the third base side of home plate and head down the third base line, leaving the area down the first base line and behind home plate for suites. By putting suites directly behind home plate, you can sell them for more than if they were down the third base side. The press box will have a separate area for TV, two radio booths and the general press area. The suites and club level should generate in the vicinity of $200,000 annually in revenue.

Because Robe wants to make the park fan friendly, the concession areas under the concourse will have an area where fans can still see game action while waiting in line, much as they do at LSU. That's why the big gap between the lower box seats and the grandstand. In addition, there will be overhangs built over the bleachers down the first and third base line. Based on what I've seen, they will cover about 2/3 of each bleacher area, much like the current overhang of the grandstand.

Previous reports that the renovations are $1 million more than planned are correct. They would rather raise additional funds than make cuts.

The latest drawing is pretty new. To answer the question of "when do we get to see it," they still have to have another meeting or two to finalize. I have already started to work on an article for "Geaux Cajuns" magazine giving more details and updates on the progress of the plans. That article, which will probably be in the magazine for the Troy game, should include the latest rendering.

I'm pretty impressed, based on what I've seen, that this is going to get done for 10-11 million. I think we're getting a lot of bang for the buck