Husky Stadium: Renovation being talked about, but there's no plan yet

Todd Turner says he didn't really mean to start any rumblings about the future of Husky Stadium on the day he was announced as the new Washington athletic director last June.

"You or somebody led me into that," he said with a laugh to a reporter this week.

Asked his initial thoughts about Husky Stadium that day, Turner said he noticed that some other stadiums had some "modernization" that is missing at UW, and added that "it's interesting that there is a track here."

After a month as the AD, Turner finds it even more interesting.

"I can't remember the last stadium I was in that had a track around it," he said, adding that fans in the upper reaches of the horseshoe are maybe 140 yards away from the opposite end zone.

"I've looked in a lot of closets over there recently," Turner said. "There's some real challenges there."

And meeting the challenges that Husky Stadium presents figures to be the lasting legacy of Turner's tenure running UW athletics once the current NCAA investigation and other related messes of the past few years are cleaned up.

"Todd is bound and determined that there will be something done at some point," said Ron Crockett, a noted UW booster who has helped lead the fund-raising efforts for other Huskies athletic construction projects. "It is very high on his list."

What those plans may be, however, are still months — if not years — away from being determined.

Turner said that "in the next 12 to 18 months our plan ought to be formulating, and then in three to five years there ought to be some action on that."

Before any of that begins, however, Turner wants to see a game at Husky Stadium, something that will happen for the first time today when UW opens the season at 2:30 p.m. against Fresno State.

"I'm going to be all over it," Turner said.

He thinks he knows what he'll see — a game-day atmosphere that is almost unbeatable, but a structure that needs a lot of work, particularly if Washington is to keep its traditional place among the top college-football programs in the country.

"My initial impression is that it's a cool stadium with a very unique setting," he said. "I think there are some things in there that need to be addressed from an improvement standpoint, but also from an infrastructure and deferred-maintenance standpoint. Over time, a lot of rain has fallen on that stadium, a lot of wind has blown on it and a lot of sun has set on it, and it takes its share of depreciation over time. We really need to look at that, and while we're doing that we need to look at how we can bring it up to 21st-century standards."

Building the stadium

As a new book by Jim Daves and Tom Porter — "Husky Stadium: Great Games and Golden Moments" — details, Husky Stadium was built in 1920 at an initial cost of $600,000.

Washington had spent much of its first 30 years of football playing in parks around town before settling on Denny Field on the upper campus.

The rising popularity of the team, however, necessitated a bigger stadium. Darwin Meisnest, a graduate manager of the ASUW student organization, helped persuade other students that they should lead a fund-raising effort to build a new stadium that would be located on an open area near Lake Washington.

They raised about $240,000 selling plaques to local businesses and season-ticket holders. (Thankfully, ideas to call the new field such things as "Washington Dimple," "Crater," and "Cascadium" weren't as enthusiastically embraced.)

Groundbreaking was April 16, 1920, and the first game played Nov. 27, 1920, with Dartmouth defeating the Huskies 28-7 before about 24,500 fans (capacity was 30,000).

There have been several major renovations. In 1936, 10,000 seats were added around the rim. In 1950, the roof-covered stands on the south side — dubbed "Cassill's Castle" after then-athletic director Harvey Cassill — were built, adding 15,000 seats at a cost of $1.7 million. That also necessitated moving the field 10 yards closer to the lake, where it now sits.

Another 3,000 seats were added in 1968. The last big change came in 1987, when the roof-covered seats on the north end were built, adding 13,000 new seats at a cost of $13 million.

That last project, however, illustrates just how complicated stadium issues are getting — among the requirements before the project could begin was an environmental-impact report totaling more than 300 pages.

Dated stadium, but unique

While there have been constant alterations through the years — new FieldTurf was added in 2000, new aluminum seats added on both sides in the early 1990s, etc. — along with the major renovations detailed above, some parts of the stadium are essentially unchanged from the day it was built.

"There's no doubt it is a dated stadium that doesn't stand up real well in comparison to a lot of other more contemporary stadiums or ones that have been updated, and that bears attention," said new UW president Mark Emmert, who said he has told Turner to take the season to figure out what the possibilities for updating Husky Stadium might be.

The concrete lower bowl is the original facility, and the south side is pretty much the same as it was when it was built in 1950.

Also dating to 1950 is the press box. It stands 165 feet above the stadium floor and is famous throughout college football for its unique on-top view that gives observers the feeling of watching one of those old electric football games with the players buzzing around the field seemingly miles below.

Washington coach Keith Gilbertson said that in his days as an offensive coordinator, he considered the UW press box "the best place I've ever called a game from" because of that view.

Turner says any renovation should keep as many of the stadium's traditional features in place as possible.

"You will not see another press box like that anywhere in America," Turner said. "That makes it unique and you need to try to preserve some of the uniqueness of that."

Raising the money

But before deciding what should be done, Turner will have to figure out how much it would cost — and where the money would come from.

Washington still is attempting to finish its "Campaign for the Student Athlete" started by athletic director Barbara Hedges in 1997, which included the renovation of Edmundson Pavilion, a new indoor practice facility, the renovation of the crew house and academic center, and new baseball and soccer stadiums. The crew house should be completed in March at a cost of about $18 million. But the baseball and soccer stadiums have yet to break ground, a project that could cost $12 million or more. Fund raising for the baseball and soccer stadiums is just beginning.

But a major renovation of Husky Stadium would be by far the costliest project in the university's athletic history. Oregon State is attempting to raise $93 million for a renovation of Reser Stadium, for instance, and Washington State says a full renovation of Martin Stadium could cost $90 million.

Any major Husky Stadium project would cost more than $100 million just to start.

"It's all going to be driven by how much money we can raise," Turner said.

Considering the athletic department's recent problems, that it just hit up major donors for the Campaign for the Student Athlete, and a growing movement around the country decrying the "facilities wars" in college athletics, undertaking such a project anytime soon could be dicey.

Raising the money for a renovation of Husky Stadium is "an issue that should be approached pretty delicately," Emmert said. "We do have so many priorities other than a football stadium. But nonetheless, we need to make sure it's the kind of stadium that reflects the quality of the university."

What to renovate

Plans at Oregon, Oregon State and WSU for major renovations may be Washington's impetus to find the money. The question then becomes what to do.

Other than items such as updating the bathrooms and concession stands, the most obvious way to renovate is to remove the track to bring fans closer to the game and create a more intimate feeling.

"We are a long way from the field and in today's world, that's rare," Turner said. "Fans are much more sophisticated than they were 50 years ago in terms of what they expect."

But removing the track isn't quite that easy. First is the issue of where to put the track. Turner says one option is to place it around the new soccer stadium. The new soccer stadium will likely include a design with the ability to house a track, though that decision has not yet been made.

Husky Stadium presents additional challenges, however, that other schools that have removed tracks to dig down and move their seats closer — such as USC and Washington State — haven't faced.

The most imposing is the water table, which is estimated to be six to 10 feet below the stadium.

"That's why we have a moat around the stadium to control the water," Gilbertson said.

Washington officials say they don't think the water table presents any problems that can't be overcome, though they would likely add significantly to the cost.

Simply removing the track, dropping the stadium floor and moving the existing stands closer, however, also creates problems.

Lowering the field too much would change the view from the south side upper deck, in particular, likely creating a whole bunch of new obstructed view seats. A possible tradeoff would be that the lowest-level seats in Husky Stadium — which are now view obstructed and often sit unsold — would likely then become some of the best seats in the house.

"It's really exciting to think about (the possibilities)," said Chip Lydum, the UW's associate athletic director for facilities, events and capital projects. "But it's a lengthy process to go from concept to use."

Any renovation also would likely include club seating and suites, which could each be used to help pay for the project. That would be similar to what occurred in 1987, when the north side addition was largely paid for through contributions to the Don James Center.

What also would have to be decided is whether capacity would be increased. While there have been some calls to increase it up to say 90,000, some UW officials and boosters worry that would just lead to a lot of empty seats.

"The last thing you want to have is a huge edifice that's not full," Crockett said.

Adding seats would also mean more cars, and parking is already at a premium.

Gargantuan project

Former coach Rick Neuheisel had grand ideas for a renovation that included adding coaches' offices and other football-related facilities to the horseshoe.

When word of those ideas became public, two engineering firms voluntarily submitted drawings of a renovated Husky Stadium to Hedges (any official work has to be approved through the state-mandated bid process).

The other day, Turner flipped through those designs, which also include such things as a Don James Center-type facility on the south side and tailgate-type areas on the berms.

But looking at the drawings only reinforces that this is a gargantuan project, one that Turner isn't sure could be completed on his watch.

Instead, he drew up a scenario where the plans are put in place while he is in charge and then gradually phased in over a span of five or 10 — and maybe even 20 — years.

"Maybe we design it carefully so that my successors always know there has been a plan in place for where the stadium is going and then we adjust to that as time and fan interest changes," Turner said. "But part of our stewardship is that this continues to be a revered place at Washington. We can't just let it sit there without keeping it in good condition or you will lose that special place it has in our history."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com