At some point, we gotta Qatar losses no?
Also, did you know the people in Dubai do not like the Flintstones, but the people of Abu Dhabi do
Temporary stands at the practice field?
- Thread starter PURPLE Book Cat
- Start date
Also, did you know the people in Dubai do not like the Flintstones, but the people of Abu Dhabi do
The engineers will tell that substrate is designed to support a helluva load. The whole lakefill is. You’re not goin to get a permit that involves boring into the bedrock on short order. If it can’t be supported with minor intrusions, ain’t gonna happen - short and fast term.
This is actually an amazing idea. Qatar just built all those beautiful stadiums for the World Cup. And I bet they would probably foot the bill for most of the extra expenses to actually play a game there.
Carrying the load of a temporary stadium and all its occupants was the primary goal of the feasibility study. I don’t know exact results, but it it/was a concern.
Goddammit. Good foresight considering every campus library in the country is sinking one inch a year “because the engineers forgot to include the weight of the books.”
50-yard ”losers walk” field on Deering Meadow it is!
GCG, I see you patting yourself on the back right now.Don't pull a muscle, Bro.
Obtuse Jon Rothstein reference.
Was apparently also a significant concern with the new Kellogg building, which was moved further “inland” as a result of said concerns.
That is a great idea, if NU wanted to boost visibility of their Qatar campus and use one of the “home” games I bet some of those nice new stadiums are available and maybe would draw pretty well for random interest/novelty of having an American football game there.
Huh? Why on earth would any NU fan attend a game in Qatar. I assume this is sarcasm and I'm just not getting it.
NU Qatar has a Masters Program in Sports Admin. Let's leave it up to them to figure out the details. I bet they would be better at the job than the actual admin.
Well at this rate Soldier field might be an option as it doesn’t seem there will be solutions before then
I will say this. Qatar Airways will be the best business class experience you will ever have. Go to a game in Doha just for the flight.
What a treat for Chicago area NU fans. Over 20 hours each way from ORD, and at a cost of about $15,000 round trip for Business Class. Better book as soon as the game is announced to avoid being left out. You can save considerable money, though, by booking Economy Class, but you're still looking at over 20 hours of flying time each way. This game will probably sell out.
Would the Qatari government subsidize this for NU and its opponents? Online classes, perhaps dual citizenship for NU players and coaches and staffs?
The possibilities are endless if you skip the obvious solution - “plan with the NFL and Bears more than two months in advance” - and expand your mind.
As shown below, immediately surrounding the lakefill are the Walter Center garage (parking capacity 700), Cook Hall lot (parking capacity 181), and Noyes parking lot (capacity 170). Then you have the Northwestern lakeside parking in south campus (capacity 700) - walkable to the practice field via the lakefront.
Most of the other parking on current football shuttle routes to Ryan Field are downtown, closer to the lakefill than the stadium.
Compare that to the 1,357 parking spaces currently at Ryan Field. I presume that you would be able to retain ~1,000+ of those and reverse the flow of the shuttles to the lakefill.
I would argue that logistically, it is no greater level of complexity to transport ~20,000 people to the lakefill as it would be to transport ~40,000 to Ryan Field, as already happens every year.
One of my previous roles was in planning for Chicago 2016... so I am familiar with many of the pertinent issues. On first glance, it seems feasible from a raw movement of people standpoint.
The consid
Re: AD planning, the sad thing is that I believe that some of the actual concept for the temporary stadium in practice actually derives from this thread.
And I am very comfortable in my current role, thank you.
Why do you keep misrepresenting my position on this?
I’ve long said that this would be a terrible, terrible idea. Based on what I know, I thought pulling this off at all was an impossibility. We’ve been forced into it because our Athletic Department ****ed up so badly we had to have some kind of solution to play games this fall. I still maintain that it will be a complete shit show and have zero percent confidence in the NU administration to pull it off anywhere near decently.
On the contrary, I like the out of the box thinking. Soldier Field must have offered really lousy terms, thinking NU had no other choice. Playing games like not sharing the Bears schedule (surely they have an unofficial schedule they can confidently speak to) isn't indicative of good faith. I'm glad NU told them to go pound sand.
I agree that this is a position that we're forced into because our Athletic department (by which I mean, the leader of the athletic department) was incapable of effective planning and preparation. After spending too much time twiddling thumbs, an answer is being cobbled together with no time left on the clock, and no leadership from the top.
I hope you are wrong and that it is not a mess. If we pull it off, it could be a nice photo op to be playing on the lake - showcasing our campus. Further, there will be some wild-ass wind which may be create a quirky home field advantage.
With that said, the lack of planning and preparation means this will be rushed, which decreases the chances of success. More worryingly, the rush will result in some real risks when it comes to safety. InProduction worked with University of Hawaii as well. UH's stadium build was simpler, on a less tricky site, and less rushed - and a person still died in a construction accident there.
Let's hope that our leaders have not put anyone in harm's way. If this succeeds, it will be despite the current leadership, not because of it.
InProduction can do some impressive things with temporary stands, which I saw firsthand in Vegas for the grand pre-build. Open, enclosed with luxury suites, etc. although I don’t think they will be able to spare much room for that if they want capacity the big draw opponents we should still shoot for soldier or Wrigley, but for the games that had like 10,000 bots in seats anyway the last couple years, this could actually be made into a positive showing off the campus and the novelty of football just steps from Lake Michigan.
Might it actually look better to have a 10,000 packed stadium with vibrant campus and lakefill foot traffic against EIU or Miami OH than 10,000 in Soldier Field?
This has been a mess, but I couldn't care less about Soldier Field. Given the home schedule for this year, the stadium will either look like a tier 5 bowl game or effectively be away games (Wisconsin, Ohio State). All the other possibilities are problematic--Seatgeek might as well be on Mars, scheduling issues at baseball stadiums (and football on a baseball diamond is weird). This should have been determine before the wrecking ball hit, but if they can get it together, lakefront football could be special. I think the priorities are straight here: players and students, then STHs, then other Cats fans, then opposing team fans.
I personally feel like I understand your opinion on this, and I also don't have a ton of confidence we can pull it off, but I'm hoping you will be happy to be proven wrong in this instance, right? I know I want to be wrong!
East lot is an “absolutely not.” It’s fenced off as lay down area for the Ryan Field project, plus excavation on the area will begin in the next month or so.
West Lot would presumably be good for parking, but getting shuttles anywhere near the lakefront is going to be a giant shit show. There’s a single lane into and out of the area, which will likely have some level of traffic to get VIPs to either the nearby surface areas or parking structure. Much more likely would be a short shuttle to either Sheridan or the surface lot near the tennis courts, which is still a good 10- or 15-minute walk to the stadium. However, Sheridan has also been narrowed to a two-lane road for much of campus to accommodate a dedicated bike lane and I assume the Village of Evanston wouldn’t be terribly keen on material traffic increases for long durations.
Yet another example of an important element of gameday management that will have to be hastily thrown together and therefore likely poorly-executed because this NU administration didn’t have the foresight to do proper contingency planning.
How far are people willing to walk? Most are ok to walk a mile or two if necessary, but many many can not. How do they get close? Are there shuttles that can drive anywhere close to the stadium on campus even if there aren't official roads? Even if you used the footpaths along the lakefill for golf carts and the like, that would take away a lot of the positives here (i.e. the beauty of being next to the lake).
Almost like this could’ve been through through with creative solutions such as a flotilla of golf carts for elderly or less mobile fans had we started truly contemplating this option months (if not years) ago.
But now we are left trying to shine up a turd.
Absolutely. There are plenty of places to acquire those as a rental for events. They could easily just buy a bunch for a couple years then resell them to a course. That would be the easy part. Getting a decent system set up and identifying which older fans and donors get the parking with full shuttle service is another.
At a lot of schools they have a number you can text the morning before a game and request golf cart service for an elderly fan. Works pretty well. Not sure of NU will be able to get something that smooth going.
NU is working with a company with a lot of experience putting these things together. Maybe it should give us a little more optimism to think management at NU might just pass everything off to their consultants. Let the actually competent people set it up.
At any rate, you and I have discussed this a lot. There are probably going to be some big snags in the gameday experience, even if things are relatively well planned. I’m just choosing to be glass half full and be excited about the good aspects of this. As we often say on these things, the players, coaches (and undergrad students) are excited about this, which means it helps our program, and I’ll bet the recruits will love the experience too.
