Future of Upper North Stands?

TechInNC

TechInNC

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Anyone know how the upcoming renovations to/ rebuild of the Edge Center will impact the Upper North stands? Based on the renderings provided it's really hard to get a read on that. On the one hand I'd hate to lose capacity; on the other, as currently configured, the upper north is a bit of an ungainly beast. (As an aside, we had the old North Stands when I was a student there in the early 90's, and honestly I still miss that as it meant the Heisman Gym was still on the backside...)
 
I have zero info, but wish they could bowl it. The primary thing that I wish could be accomplished is to move the students back to the East and the opposite end zone. With our small capacity that is the one thing that could be done to create some pressure on opponents. The north could be where we send the mutts and visitors.
 
The fact that we have a world class architecture school and still ended up with that abomination of the upper north infuriates me.

Make the stadium design a senior project with the only constraints being 50+k capacity expandable to 75k and protect the view to midtown for night games.
 
RamblinWreck09 said:
The fact that we have a world class architecture school and still ended up with that abomination of the upper north infuriates me.

Make the stadium design a senior project with the only constraints being 50+k capacity expandable to 75k and protect the view to midtown for night games.
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I like the upper north. I can't control GOL leaving and everyone abandoning ship. Hell, when it was planned, we were a top tier college football team. I believe we had a few #1 votes prior to the 2000 or 2001 season
 
This should have never been built. Easier to say now in hindsight I guess. Tech isn't the only place where problems like this exist.

Someone commented here that the SEC championship game had empty seats in the upper decks. You know, that conference where "it just means more." It's an ever increasing problem for all of sports at the pro and college level.

I don't know what the official attendance numbers for all of college football are this season, but anecdotally I noticed quite a few games with a lot of empty seats. Big games not just run of the mill ones. The data for attendance has been trending downward for years now and it's starting to show up in an obvious way.

I expect that trend to continue for a lot of reasons including wall to wall TV coverage that you can enjoy at home. The athletic programs are benefiting from the TV contracts but starting to lose on the attendance side of things. It would be interesting to know how those numbers are adding up. Numbers every athletic program needs to know.

The entirety of college football game day attendance and TV contract calculations needs to be better understood for future planning and design of these facilities.

Many new stadium designs, in the pros and elsewhere, are going smaller for these reasons. What are the future plans for Bobby Dodd stadium? I don't know. Is there a master plan for the entirety of the stadium and adjoining structures? What are the long term plans for all of this? Does anybody know?

This discussion also appeared in the other thread about why we are broke: https://stingtalk.com/board/threads/why-are-we-broke.113419/
 
It isn’t going anywhere, so this is a worthless discussion. But count me in the “it’s not that the built it, but why did they build something so atrocious” camp. Although I admit that it looks good from street level on the outside (which I what I think they were going for).
 
Alright here’s my solution. We make a banner that goes across the top 10-15 rows that says age or YELLOW JACKETS. we put a platform at the top with a giant steam whistle and we launch fireworks from the top of the upper north and crank up the whistle with all kinds of smoke when Tech scores. For a big game you offer tickets where the banner is when the rest sell our.
 
savbandjacket said:
It isn’t going anywhere, so this is a worthless discussion. But count me in the “it’s not that the built it, but why did they build something so atrocious” camp. Although I admit that it looks good from street level on the outside (which I what I think they were going for).
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It also doesn't look bad from the air (as in my avatar). It only looks funny from the inside the stadium where you can see the incongruity with the other two upper decks. How GT could so badly bugger that up is beyond me. Then again, they moved the field over in the same redesign and left the Wardlaw Building misaligned. I just don't get it, but it is what it is.
 
Now that they sell beer at BDS, I think they should turn the upper north into some kind of a beer garden area. Put tiered areas for small tables and some covered areas for shade. Instead of a bunch of empty seats, it would be a casual party area with a view of the skyline.
 
jacket67 said:
Now that they sell beer at BDS, I think they should turn the upper north into some kind of a beer garden area. Put tiered areas for small tables and some covered areas for shade. Instead of a bunch of empty seats, it would be a casual party area with a view of the skyline.
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Sell separate tickets to it for very little so that you can make sure visiting fans can't get in (or minimize how many can)
 
We have the facilities we have and I think we should use them to our advantage. The north end zone (lower and upper) were the loudest and most spirited sections in the stadium this year. The noise generated from this area directly impacted Duke's play calling and helped to win that game.

Coach Key in his presser said fans can help the team by going to the games and supporting the team. I think we need to turn Section 215 and 216 above the rail into an overflow student section. No reason students on campus should not be at the games.
 
So I take from all this that no one actually knows whether the construction will spill over to Upper North. Fair enough. Thanks.
 
THWUGA said:
Yes but they created awesome camera angles, especially when the stands damn near fell down in some of our biggest moments.
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You talking about that time I snuck large Marge into BDS late one night for a whoopie session in the old North stands?
 
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