www.tennessean.com/article/201...?nclick_check=1

Great news sounds like this week will begin the process of renovating Dudley, long overdue I hope we continue to do things the right way.

There's a new Nashville planning process going forward to envision Nashville in 2040. It is thought that the area will have a million more residents by then. Williamson and Rutherford Counties will have 500,000 residents each. Even if only 2% of these new residents are interested in SEC football, that's 20,000 fannies in the seats.

VU needs to have the ability to expand the stadium to meet this potential demand without over expanding.

I'll say.

Doing it "the right way" will not be very easy or affordable.

The stadium is cramped in every way - the seating, the steps, the concourses, the tunnels, the bathrooms - all of it. You could redistribute the seats to buy more space but that would reduce the seating capacity to an already small stadium. Not much you can do about the concourses since the whole thing is hemmed in by two roads and our new baseball field.  They could do more with the berm area - add some bathrooms, maybe some seating to relieve the pressure on the rest of the house.

Because of the way the goal line area seats swoop upwards, almost every other seat in the house has an obstructed view of the end zone corners.  Anything above 12 rows cannot see the near corners of the end zone.

Might have to do something bold like block in Jess Neely to expand the stadium outward.

Also, the "luxury" box seats are high and far away.  The windows do not open to allow stadium atmosphere in so crowd noise is piped in via speakers and sounds ridiculous if you're in there.

In short, if we're not demo-ing this thing - I think all we're going to see are 2 more bathrooms (which is ain't bad).

I would be for making the endzone seats and the sideline seats more perpendicular to each other like Auburn's stadium. I think the space would allow for it and the seats would be phenomenal.

My wife looked at the paper this morning and said, they need to start with the women's restrooms before they do anything else.

I just love what TCU did and hope that we create a real boutique of a stadium. Not sure we can with size recreate the wheel, but surely something can be done to improve its feel.

anythings better than what we got! lol ANCHORDOWN!!!!

In order to make existing seating more spacious, would it be possible to add a second deck on one side?

The most interesting thing I saw in that is that apparently Houston is building a brand new 40,000 seat stadium (with option of 20k additional seats) for only $105 million.  That seems pretty cheap to me compared to how much I've heard other stadiums cost.  Honestly, I think it's just time to tear down Dudley and build a new stadium in the lot across from the track.  If VU is going to spend all of this money to renovate, then might as well go ahead and raise about $50 million more and really produce a brand new state-of-the-art facility that will serve the Vandy community much better. 

In the past the school has spent millions of dollars to put brighter lipstick on that pig, but it's time for her to go.  There are just too many issues with the existing structure and available space to make the existing location a viable solution for the long-term.  Moving it also frees up space for the baseball field to expand or possibly build facilities for other sports.  Let's go ahead and fix this problem once and for all.

There has been a rumored upper deck that would serve both football and baseball.  I had heard that possibly both sides could have suites.  Pure rumor though.

I liked everything that Williams said: new stadium not likely and possible construction of new seats in the north end zone.
I like the stadium. Except for the aforementioned issues with some end-zone sight lines, there's really not a bad seat in the house. And one need look no further than Neyland Stadium to see how you can spruce up an ancient stadium with modern amenities.
There may come a time when a new stadium is necessary but a 32-year-old stadium is not that bad.  When a new stadium IS needed, it should be in that parking area on the southwestern corner of the domain, IMO.

Really wish we could do a remodeling job similar to TCU's stadium. It's fabulous, and IMHO about the right size for us as well (mid 40s with expansion potential).

I've always thought they should put three or four stories of parking for half that space and could build on the rest.  They could even put an club field on top of the deck like MBA did.

a new stadium?

Agree with you that if VU is going to spend all this money to renovate, it would be better off to wait to raise the extra money to build a new one.

And I don't believe more seats.  If anything, I would prefer a new stadium with less seats.  I would have no problem with 38,000 or 39,000 seats.

If Vandy is looking to expand or build new, they should be looking at around 45,000 seats. It's a modest increase over what we currently have (so it shouldn't be too hard to find a way to add it on) without overreaching and ending up with too many empties.

vandytoad wrote: There's a new Nashville planning process going forward to envision Nashville in 2040. It is thought that the area will have a million more residents by then. Williamson and Rutherford Counties will have 500,000 residents each. Even if only 2% of these new residents are interested in SEC football, that's 20,000 fannies in the seats.

VU needs to have the ability to expand the stadium to meet this potential demand without over expanding.

Excellent point.  In addition, if the Metro Transit Authority's Rapid Transit East-West Corridor comes to fruition, their will be a mass transit station literally a block from the location of the current stadium.

These initiatives are planned down the road, but it's good to see VU thinking ahead, instead of playing catch up or even ignoring the city around them.

Re: The 1981 football stadium...

I think we all agree that changes/improvements are in order, and it is promising (if not downright exciting that the "powers that be" agree). We also agree that the compact nature of the Vandy athletic footprint will pose major challenges.
 
But the biggest constraint will be $$$. 
 
For some time now I have been curious why our football stadium does not have a "real" name. Okay, I know, it's just plain ole bland "Vanderbilt Stadium". How unique.  
 
It seemed like a smart thing to do when they renovated Memorial Gym to seek a corporate sponsor. Sort of. However, only the court carries the tag "Ingram Court", but we know where the money came from.
 
The renovation cost of the football stadium will dwarf that of the Gym and require many more bucks. Donations of that size should mean "naming rights". And those rights should be "contracted" for a finite period.
 
My impression is that Ms. Ingram donated a fixed sum for the gym. We need an annual "fee" that could be generated from a major corporation. Like "Bridgestone Arena". 
 
My bet is that's the only way we will get the kind of stadium we need... and deserve.

The field will always be "Dudley", and that should be honored. But if we want to "play with the big boys" it's time to do some 21st Century marketing.  
 

VandyFitz wrote: I've always thought they should put three or four stories of parking for half that space and could build on the rest.  They could even put an club field on top of the deck like MBA did.

I dont like the idea of parking decks.  Kills tailgating.

Section F, thanks but I have no indication of whether VU is participating in the process. I would assume so since VU is the largest private employer, a major transit user, source of entertainment and culture, one of the major users of utility services, a major income source since students are large spenders of discretionary income, contributor to the city's architecture, etc.

I know there are a lot of things that need improving at Dudley, but the 2 things that I would like to see most is improvements to the bathrooms and replacing the bleachers with stadium seats. I am tired of trying to sit in seat 4 only to have to squeeze into my seat due to the rampant obesity in America...Just saying....I would like to have the seat I purchased. Last year my wife and I came to a game only to find that my seat was gone because there was no where for anyone to move due to the overweight people. This is sad, it is not funny, but I paid for a seat that I did not get to sit in. My wife squeezed into her seat and I had to sit 5 rows down in an open spot. (i still had to squeeze into that one) I know many of you think this may be silly or dumb to talk about, bit this is the one thing I want at Vandy games....

Disclaimer - I do not work for Vanderbilt marketing

My wife and I pay for the seat backs/cushions when we order our season tickets.  We do that in part because they are more comfortable.  However, the primary benefit is that they define our seats, entirely overcoming the problem you have.  For this year, the cost is $40/seat.

I've got old metal seats which my father bought fifty years ago. I don't use them but my wife uses one of them.

You can buy new padded seats online for about $25.00 plus shipping and handling.