Maybe we should build it in Baton Rouge after last night
FWIW: The following was sent to students this morning as part of Dr Guice's daily update on the recovery process:
I am pleased to announce that Adam McGuirt has accepted an appointment as
Director of Disaster Recovery and Strategic Initiatives to support us in the
massive damage assessment and reporting as well as planning and oversight of
the repair & reconstruction of campus. Adam has had considerable experience
in working with other entities on-campus and off-campus in planning,
constructing and operating athletics facilities and will bring that
expertise to support us at a campus-wide level.
FYI, some recently constructed college baseball stadiums with their cost/capcities:
Under Construction:
Unnamed Stadium: Marshall, 3,500 capacity, $18-20 Million, opens in 2021
O'Brate Stadium: Okalahoma State, 8,000 capacity, $60 Million, opens in 2020
Opened 2019:
Dudy Noble: Missisippi State, 12,000 capacity, $68 Million
Kentucky Proud Park: $49 Million, 5,000 capacity
Opened 2018:
Brighton Field: Boston College, 1,000 capacity, Was a small part of a $200 Million project
Kentucky Proud Park: Kentucky, 5,000 capacity, $49 Million
2015:
Monongalia County Ballpark: West Virginia, 3,500 capacity, $25 Million, opened 2015
Liberty Baseball Stadium: Liberty, 2,500 capacity, $9 Million, opened 2013
Bart Kaufman Field: Indiana, 2,500 capacity, $19.8 Million, opened 2013
Alexander Field: Purdue, 1,500 capacity, $10.3 Million, opened 2013
Louisiana Lafayette spent $16 million just to renovate!
What about south campus? Lots of land down there. Might be a good opportunity to start expanding university south. Just a thought.
and its a farm...so if we build it they will come
It was a complete rebuild of the previous grandstand, but the existing field, drainage system, lighting, fences, bullpens, etc were all left in place. That's a good chunk of the money saved. Starting from scratch is going to get expensive. I think $18-23 million is probably what yall will end up spending.
Louisiana Tech is a school of Frickin ENGINEERS! MAKE IT WORK! The current Love Shack location is fantastic, with the University Apartments, the Railroad tracks and Wiley Tower in the background. It's also an easy walk for even the laziest of students to get to a game. Why on earth would you want to change that?
Over the last couple of decades, big cities (Denver, Houston, etc...) were smart enough to move their new major league baseball parks to downtown locations, realizing the value of accessibility. In similar fashion, LA Tech needs to be equally smart about this, and take advantage of its' "mid campus" location. You've already got it, don't lose it.
I do not want some out of the way location half way to Grambling, just so we can add another 1K seats that no one will ever sit in. If it's too far away, Tech students won't walk to it. Screw that! We should build a brand new, TOP SHELF, state of the art stadium, right in the same old spot, where students can walk to it. I don't care if it isn't ready until 2022.
See how the seating is below the ground level? I wonder if we could feasibly do something like that where the Love shack sits now. Take out a bunch of dirt, build the new stands into a hole. Move it back and closer to tech drive (removing the hill down the right field line by Tech drive). Move the scoreboard to in front of the apartment whose backside faces the stands. That would give use more distance, a (hopefully) bigger hill for people to sit and more hill that won't be covered by a scoreboard. We could go with a shorter fence in right field where people could hang over. Go with a taller fence in left field because I think that would be the shorter distance.