Louisville AD Tom Jurich on Thursday at school's annual 50-Yard-Line dinner announced to big donors that the athletic department is "ready to move forward with an expansion to close the north end" of Papa John's Cardinal Stadium and "expand the Howard Schnellenberger Football Complex beneath it," according to Eric Crawford of WDRB.com. The group in attendance, "as it has been before, will be the first line of fundraising." Blue Equity Chair & Managing Dir Jonathan Blue, a UL trustee, tweeted that the expansion will include "state of the art field-level suites, improved club-level facilities and more." Others at the meeting said that "no definite timetable was given for the expansion, and estimates for final capacity were between 10,000 to 12,000 additional seats in the 55,000-seat facility, which could make it the state’s largest football stadium." Fundraising has not started for the project, which "would be the second major expansion since the stadium opened" in '98. The facility was completed at a cost of $79M in '98, and was "expanded to 55,000 seats" at a cost of $63M in '10. Should this expansion be completed, capacity "could rise to as many as 67,000 and the total facility cost" to more than $190M (WDRB.com, 8/28).
