LSU’s Tiger Stadium will undergo the venue's “third major expansion” in the last two decades as the south end is expanded, part of a $100M project “that will also include facility improvements for gymnastics, tennis and track and field,” according to Scott Rabalais of the Baton Rouge ADVOCATE. Plans call for “the addition of about 60 suites (with a capacity of 24 people in each), 3,000 club-level seats, a 1,500-seat upper deck above the rim of the current south end zone stands, plus two video scoreboards in the southwest and southeast corners of the stadium.” Tiger Stadium’s capacity “will go from 92,542 to approximately 100,000” when the project is complete. If approved by the LSU Board of Supervisors at their April 27 meeting, construction “would begin this fall with the target of being completed in time for the 2014 football season.” Rabalais notes funding for the project “would come through a bond issue by the Tiger Athletic Foundation (TAF), a private fund-raising entity.” Demand for premium seating “remained high” as it was “fueled by the most successful 12-year period in LSU football history.” LSU AD Joe Alleva said that “none of the original suite owners have allowed their leases to lapse, and the waiting list for both suites and club seats has remained long.” Funding from the project “will build a new tennis facility either on LSU’s main campus or its south campus.” In the space currently occupied by W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium, Alleva said that he “would like to build a practice facility for LSU’s gymnastics program.” The south stadium expansion “will wrap the south end zone in a new façade and connect the east and west upper decks, allowing for a person to walk from one side of Tiger Stadium to the other at its upper levels” (Baton Rouge ADVOCATE, 4/19). Dallas-based architectural firm HKS is designing the venue's expansion project (THE DAILY).
GOOD TO GO: Long Island Univ.-C.W. Post officials said that the school “has the initial funding in place to begin an $8 million renovation of Hickox Field, which houses the university's football, men's and women's lacrosse and field hockey teams.” Construction on the initial phase “is scheduled to begin by winter and be completed by the fall of 2013” (NEWSDAY, 4/19).
