For sports architect Earl Santee, renovating Texas A&M’s Kyle Field has been his most difficult project in 30-plus years in the business.
There were plenty of issues tied to reshaping an 88-year-old building at a cost approaching $500 million, but many of the challenges came in convincing school officials that it could be done without the Aggies playing football games elsewhere for two years.
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Community suites, common to the major leagues, share lounge space.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
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“No one thought we could build it and have them play at the same time,” said Santee, principal-in-charge of the upgrades. “I never had a doubt. There were hard decisions. The chancellor [John Sharp] was a great advocate and he was helpful making decisions every day. The 12th Man [Foundation] made sure that we didn’t accept anything but the best. [General contractor] Manhattan-Vaughn had to accept a crazy schedule. The commitment was made 2 1/2 years ago and they lived up to it.”
The key component of the renovation was unifying the stadium’s architecture using matching brick throughout the building and designing new connections on the concourses. Over the years, various upgrades had left a mish-mash of a facility missing its true identity, according to Santee.
“It had so many hands touching it that I really couldn’t say, ‘What is the essence of Kyle Field … besides the fans?” he said. “We needed to give it a body and structure. The east side was designed in the 1940s and we kept two-thirds of it. Trying to integrate it and have a connected bowl was very difficult.”
The Populous crew led by project manager Craig Kaufman found solutions to all the design issues, including the little things, such as confirming Texas A&M had indeed won the bowl games featured on vintage game-day programs that the architect had selected for wall graphics in the premium clubs.
For a stadium with more than 102,000 seats, it’s a tight seating bowl. To make the venue even more intimidating and louder than it was at 82,000 seats, the field was lowered seven feet to add seats in better locations closer to the action in the lower bowl, Santee said.
In addition, the field was moved a bit south and the north stands rebuilt at a steeper rake to improve sight lines and make them equivalent to views in all sections. Previously, fans sitting in club seats and the upper deck in the north end could not see the end zone below them, Santee said.
Populous introduced two new seating concepts to Kyle Field common in the major leagues. The 20 “community” suites, divided into three- and four-suite pods on the east side — the side where the students sit — have shared lounge space. It’s a concept used in some NFL and MLS facilities.
In College Station, Texas A&M’s sales team went through a learning curve to grasp the communal lounge design before going to market. But after talking with Populous about the idea of patrons building new relationships in a shared environment, those suites quickly sold out, school officials said.
The community suites carry a $250,000 capital gift plus a $64,000 annual fee, apart from season tickets. They were popular buys among younger clientele, graduates in their 30s and 40s with a desire to remain part of the 12th Man in the heart of the student section, Kaufman said.
Separately, Populous designed an air-conditioned concourse to support 1,600 field box seats making up the first few rows at midfield on the west side behind the home team’s bench. The season-ticket price is $560 for those individual seats, plus a required donation.
“You see this in the NFL,” Santee said. “They’re not club seats, just great seat locations with a bar and concessions. I think those seats will double and triple in value after people see the locations.”
