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Post by unaman on Jun 9, 2023 10:59:31 GMT -6
una.edu/BIStadium. Public renderings for Bank Independent Stadium will be released after the design is approved by the Board of Trustees. So it was a press conference to announce we’ve approved to do something that we should have been doing 5 years ago….
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Post by unalions on Jun 9, 2023 11:11:13 GMT -6
From the press release:
In a unanimous vote Friday, the University of North Alabama Board of Trustees has approved an on-campus, multipurpose stadium project, to be named Bank Independent Stadium, and authorized next steps for the venue's design and planning process. The approval comes amid an outpouring of philanthropic support for the project. University officials confirm that external fundraising will be the core driver for the development of the new facility.
The proposed stadium will re-develop areas used by North Alabama baseball, football, and soccer, while providing an opportunity to host numerous sporting and non-sporting events. Non- athletic events could include concerts, live performances as well as other academic and community events.
With Friday's vote by the Board of Trustees, Bank Independent Stadium will enter the design phase, which is anticipated to take approximately 12-18 months. UNA will enter into an agreement with a sports construction firm to formalize the project scope, design, and financial strategy. Details will be shared as they become available, according to North Alabama Athletics Director Dr. Josh Looney.
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Post by unalions on Jun 9, 2023 11:12:30 GMT -6
una.edu/BIStadium. Public renderings for Bank Independent Stadium will be released after the design is approved by the Board of Trustees. So it was a press conference to announce we’ve approved to do something that we should have been doing 5 years ago…. Which was actually said by Kitts in different words. He blamed the pandemic. But, hey, at least it’s happening now. Officially.
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Post by unalions on Jun 9, 2023 12:16:50 GMT -6
As expected, LOTS of opinions online. Haha.
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Post by roaringsince96 on Jun 9, 2023 16:40:23 GMT -6
Sure they are all positive
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Post by unafied on Jun 9, 2023 17:35:01 GMT -6
Sure they are all positive I’ve seen several saying that we “must be poor”. And I guess that’s the question. Are we doing this because we have an innovative plan that could change how other universities look at building multi-use stadiums? OR, are we doing this because we simply don’t have the money to separate football and baseball? I think there could be a middle ground of doing this now, and building baseball a separate home down the road, but who knows. Obviously that spot on campus is basically the ONLY place a football stadium could go, and I never really thought it could be squeezed in there without needing some of the baseball space. So maybe they have a plan to house baseball there for a few years before raising money to build them a proper stadium out at Cox Creek Park or wherever. Either way, I’m just hoping corners won’t be cut all to save a buck.
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Post by roaringsince96 on Jun 9, 2023 17:38:27 GMT -6
It helps keep all sports on campus. If it can be done correctly we will have a nice stadium that will help North Alabama athletics for years. Plus it will enhance recruits experience to lookout and see a modern stadium right on campus. I also believe we will have several come to a game or games that never come now.
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Post by brandon on Jun 9, 2023 20:26:15 GMT -6
Sure they are all positive I’ve seen several saying that we “must be poor”. And I guess that’s the question. Are we doing this because we have an innovative plan that could change how other universities look at building multi-use stadiums? OR, are we doing this because we simply don’t have the money to separate football and baseball? I think there could be a middle ground of doing this now, and building baseball a separate home down the road, but who knows. Obviously that spot on campus is basically the ONLY place a football stadium could go, and I never really thought it could be squeezed in there without needing some of the baseball space. So maybe they have a plan to house baseball there for a few years before raising money to build them a proper stadium out at Cox Creek Park or wherever. Either way, I’m just hoping corners won’t be cut all to save a buck. If they do it right, I think it's the future for landlocked university. If done wrong, waste money that could have been used elsewhere. I like the idea of a multi use stadium. Honolulu Stadium was supposed to be a multi use stadium that, while designed right (if it wasn't on an island or other coastal area) it wasn't executed with the right materials. I was lucky enough to watch a game there and a local was telling me how the stadium works and it's impressive. MLB even played a game there. If done right, in our case, I think it will bring a unique aspect to collegiate stadiums. I'm the type that enjoys unique more than what's the trend. Stadiums I would like to visit are examples, Harvard, Yale, the Citadel, EKU...and others.
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Post by unalions on Jun 9, 2023 22:27:29 GMT -6
I’ve seen several saying that we “must be poor”. And I guess that’s the question. Are we doing this because we have an innovative plan that could change how other universities look at building multi-use stadiums? OR, are we doing this because we simply don’t have the money to separate football and baseball? I think there could be a middle ground of doing this now, and building baseball a separate home down the road, but who knows. Obviously that spot on campus is basically the ONLY place a football stadium could go, and I never really thought it could be squeezed in there without needing some of the baseball space. So maybe they have a plan to house baseball there for a few years before raising money to build them a proper stadium out at Cox Creek Park or wherever. Either way, I’m just hoping corners won’t be cut all to save a buck. If they do it right, I think it's the future for landlocked university. If done wrong, waste money that could have been used elsewhere. I like the idea of a multi use stadium. Honolulu Stadium was supposed to be a multi use stadium that, while designed right (if it wasn't on an island or other coastal area) it wasn't executed with the right materials. I was lucky enough to watch a game there and a local was telling me how the stadium works and it's impressive. MLB even played a game there. If done right, in our case, I think it will bring a unique aspect to collegiate stadiums. I'm the type that enjoys unique more than what's the trend. Stadiums I would like to visit are examples, Harvard, Yale, the Citadel, EKU...and others. You'd mentioned Aloha Stadium before and I was looking it up a bit last night. I ran across this very detailed video but it's in Spanish. You can use the CC to auto-translate the subtitles into English. VERY interesting. Probably too pricey for UNA. The tech for the movable sections is cool!
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Post by brandon on Jun 9, 2023 22:32:46 GMT -6
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Post by unalions on Jun 9, 2023 22:57:12 GMT -6
Yeah, I'd seen that one. The engineering side of things is in much greater detail in the Spanish one. Here's one from just 4 days ago. I'm also seeing where they have appropriated $400M for the replacement! Wow.
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Post by unafied on Jun 10, 2023 7:05:43 GMT -6
I’ve seen several saying that we “must be poor”. And I guess that’s the question. Are we doing this because we have an innovative plan that could change how other universities look at building multi-use stadiums? OR, are we doing this because we simply don’t have the money to separate football and baseball? I think there could be a middle ground of doing this now, and building baseball a separate home down the road, but who knows. Obviously that spot on campus is basically the ONLY place a football stadium could go, and I never really thought it could be squeezed in there without needing some of the baseball space. So maybe they have a plan to house baseball there for a few years before raising money to build them a proper stadium out at Cox Creek Park or wherever. Either way, I’m just hoping corners won’t be cut all to save a buck. If they do it right, I think it's the future for landlocked university. If done wrong, waste money that could have been used elsewhere. I like the idea of a multi use stadium. Honolulu Stadium was supposed to be a multi use stadium that, while designed right (if it wasn't on an island or other coastal area) it wasn't executed with the right materials. I was lucky enough to watch a game there and a local was telling me how the stadium works and it's impressive. MLB even played a game there. If done right, in our case, I think it will bring a unique aspect to collegiate stadiums. I'm the type that enjoys unique more than what's the trend. Stadiums I would like to visit are examples, Harvard, Yale, the Citadel, EKU...and others. The TD this morning says that we floated proposals for a stadium in both 1973 and 1978. Man I’d love to know more about those, since they were before my time. Then the article goes on to talk about how basically every other D1 team in the state has either recently built new stadiums, or had major renovations. And of course it focuses heavily on Troy and JSU and all the money they’ve spent. It makes me livid that we are sitting here discussing this in 2023 with the actual stadium being at least 3 years away. Since we have waited so long, we damn well better make this something that other schools look at and say, “wow… that’s a really nice facility”. It doesn’t have to be Aloha Stadium levels of impressive, maybe, but it needs to be something other schools will take notice of and potentially look at for plans of their own. If it’s obvious that corners were cut for any of the 3 sports involved, I’ll be very disappointed. This will prove whether we are interested in having a successful athletics program or not.
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Post by unaman on Jun 10, 2023 7:53:17 GMT -6
I've seen a couple pics of the renderings (No I can not share, as I was just shown them and they were not sent to me). It's ironic that we played in Trash Panda stadium, as that was basically a dress fitting for this so if you pull pictures of that, it will give you a very good idea. There will be a batter's eye in center and jumbo tron in right field. For the most part, it will look exactly like how we played in Trash Panda stadium except there will be seating behind Left Field. Think of it as a baseball stadium with stands down first and 3rd base lines, and stands behind Left field. a Triangle stadium. There is suites and box seating on both first and 3rd base side and another smaller suite box in Left field. Right field is completely open space, and I would imagine that they roll in stands for visitors to sit on.
It is going to be one of the best baseball stadium and soccer stadium in the ASUN, but it will be very empty for both. Not sure how I feel about that. There is a potential for some office space, weight room, sport facilities on the bottom floors of the suites. There is a large practice field behind it as well.
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Post by unafied on Jun 10, 2023 11:16:06 GMT -6
I've seen a couple pics of the renderings (No I can not share, as I was just shown them and they were not sent to me). It's ironic that we played in Trash Panda stadium, as that was basically a dress fitting for this so if you pull pictures of that, it will give you a very good idea. There will be a batter's eye in center and jumbo tron in right field. For the most part, it will look exactly like how we played in Trash Panda stadium except there will be seating behind Left Field. Think of it as a baseball stadium with stands down first and 3rd base lines, and stands behind Left field. a Triangle stadium. There is suites and box seating on both first and 3rd base side and another smaller suite box in Left field. Right field is completely open space, and I would imagine that they roll in stands for visitors to sit on. It is going to be one of the best baseball stadium and soccer stadium in the ASUN, but it will be very empty for both. Not sure how I feel about that. There is a potential for some office space, weight room, sport facilities on the bottom floors of the suites. There is a large practice field behind it as well. Thanks for sharing, ‘Man. I assume for baseball and soccer they’ll tarp off the “worst” seats and probably sell ads to put on the tarps (yay?). Not sure how I feel about it resembling the Trash Panda setup since I saw a lot of negative comments about the seating there. I can picture in my head how it COULD work, but I don’t know. I have nothing against baseball and think it can be a growth sport for us, one that we could eventually have national success in. But obviously football is the moneymaker. If you have people not attending games because of poor seating, what have you accomplished in moving from Braly? I’d rather the layout be football/soccer heavy, especially since you can use temporary walls for baseball and could still eventually build a baseball-only stadium down the line. On a different note, one thing I really hope we see for tailgating purposes is to close down Pine Street all the way through campus and have the ability for vendors, food trucks, and tents and such to set up out there. It would increase space available for all of those, and obviously be a LOT safer for people walking around before and after the game. Florence is currently studying making the street 2-lanes through there, and knowing the stadium will be there might allow for the road to be redesigned to maximize usefulness on game days.
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Post by unafied on Jun 11, 2023 13:35:43 GMT -6
I’ve seen a lot of complaining from students on social media about the stadium, over housing and parking. I can’t speak for housing since I never used the dorms while I was in school, but obviously parking has always been a hassle and the place has 3000+ more students than when I attended.
Now FWIW the UNA Facebook account responded to one of those posts about parking and said they are looking at “the expansion of parking opportunities in the stadium design process”. I have said this on here before, but the #1 most logical thing they could do, to me, is to take the parking lot at the rear of Flowers (along Circular Road and across from where the student apartments used to be) and build another parking deck there. Depending on the final design of the stadium, you could essentially connect that deck to both the new stadium and to Flowers. Long-range I might even like to see that become the main entrance to Flowers, though I don’t know how feasible it would be.
With the way campus is basically landlocked, building up is really the best option. I hope they do it and don’t pave over greenspace somewhere.
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