The Univ. of North Carolina’s plan for renovatiing Kenan Stadium is "almost complete," and school officials are "hoping that they will be able to execute it before the start of next football season," according to Nolan Hayes of INSIDE CAROLINA. UNC is "planning to replace most of the remaining aluminum bleachers in the stadium with chairback seats, a change that would reduce capacity" by about 15%. A budget of $7M has been "approved for the project." UNC AD Bubba Cunningham said, “We’re working with the state construction office and a vendor to see if in fact we can get the seats designed, ordered, and in place by the ’18 season.” If UNC can move ahead with the renovations, Cunningham said that the number of new chairback seats "would be roughly 34,000 or 35,000." Hayes noted UNC did a "test run of sorts" during the '17 season, "converting some bleachers in sections 110 and 111 to chairback seats in an effort to improve seat comfort and the overall gameday experience." UNC officials received a "positive response from fans who sat in the new seats." The proposed renovations "would drop Kenan’s capacity from about 63,000 to somewhere in the low to mid 50,000s." UNC "drew an average of 50,071 fans" for its seven home games in '17 (SCOUT.com, 1/5).
