Mike Andra and John Mack got some coverage in the Pitt News for their concepts of an on-campus football stadium.
Of course, Pitt’s urban campus presents a number of space constraints. In order to make room for the large new complex, a number of properties in Panther Hollow between Joncaire and Boundary streets and Yarrow Way would need to be purchased. In addition, Mack said the Frick Fine Arts Building would need to be moved onto Schenley Plaza, and Mazeroski Field would be demolished, though he said the new stadium would also include a Pittsburgh Pirates museum.
The next area of concern for Mack and Andra is parking and transportation.
Mack said the plan includes the building of a multi-level parking garage that could hold between 1,200 and 1,500 vehicles. He also said that the Allegheny Valley Railroad could expand its commuter service operations and extend into Panther Hollow using the pre-existing railway.
In a project of this magnitude, cost is always a factor, and Mack and Andra readily admit this. They project that, in total, the project would cost $700 million, with all funding coming from alumni benefactors. They also projected that the new stadium would lead to about $47 million in revenue during its first year.
I can’t say I buy into the whole thing, but they now have the Pitt administration acknowledging their existence.
As it stands now, it’s shameful.
What if you built a New Airport and all the Airlines moved away, leaving you with a 2/3 rd’s ghost airport.
Brilliant !
Brilliant again !
Spent lunch watching the frosh move in. Saw 3 different families with uhaul trailers. Where will they put all their stuff? I hardly needed a vw beetle trunk for my move in. Think I had a dictionary, a thesaurus, a desk lamp, some sort of clock, and my clothes. But I’m old.
Also stopped at the Pitt Shop and bought static window decals that read
H2P
Hail to Pitt
It’s not the script, but I’ll take it for now. Bought 12. 2 will end up in Boston and 4 in LA. The rest will stay local.
H2P
Flew into PGH Itnl today. Pitt could have scrimmaged in concourse A when I landed at 10:45.
Pitt does not have IVY League money, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Texas A&M, NYU, etc, etc endowments and alumni with BIG POCKETS.
Take a look at O.K. State’s athletic facilities yep, T. Boone Pickens $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Pitt does not to my knowledge have a T. Boone Pickens or Bloomberg with deep, deep, deep pockets able to contribute to building a new stadium. Note Bloomberg’s money (over 1 billion) to Johns Hopkins has been very well spent. Hopkins is a fantastic University.
So, once again I repeat from yesterday where does the money come from for the “pie in the sky” 700 million +++ stadium.
EMel if you want to see what spending big bucks can do in an urban University setting visit Penn in Philly or Columbia in Harlem (NYC). Both schools have “bought” THE NEIGHBORHOOD”.
Pitt needs to gain perspective about where dollars are allocated…..yep, spend 100’s of millions on football or 100’s of millions on academic needs and capital improvements.
The new on campus stadium ain’t gonna happen…show me the money…where in HE_ _ is it coming from?
I’d love to see an on-campus, or at least an Oakland, Pitt Stadium. But there’s nowhere to put it, unless you either tear the heart of the neighborhood (to which I am very much opposed), or an existing big institution/hospital goes belly up or moves out of Oakland the way Children’s Hospital did.
That means either Carlow goes out of business and Pitt takes the site, or Magee or Presby make a big move – in spite of major multi million dollar investments in their own facilities in the very recent past. Unlikely to say the least. Those are the only parcels large enough to support a college football stadium in Oakland.
They’re also failing to see the bigger picture that includes the STUDENT EXPERIENCE.
Sure, you can think Heinz is just fine when you conveniently drive down to a game, meet up with some friends, hang out at a tailgate or squeeze into Bettis’. And when the game is over, jump back in the car and head back home.
But for Pitt students, it’s a much different matter.
Their game day experience is anything but convenient… which is attested to by their rush out of Heinz as swoon as Sweet Caroline has hit it’s last note to avoid a long line for a bus ride back home.
Even if there were some steps taken to smooth things such as completion of light rail to Oakland… there would still be lines and a sizeable portion of the student body thinking the trip to the North Side just not worth the hassle.
And yet there is a fatal flaw to the argument that a winning Pitt football team is the only thing necessary to make Heinz an experience on par with Happy Valley.
Just because Chryst or another future coach is able to return Pitt to respectability… does not mean Pitt is going to produce a 9 or 10 Win team every year.
What happens then? What happens in those in-between years when Pitt’s quarterback is more like a Tino Sunseri than a Dan Marino and it’s 7 wins or even 6?
What proven redeeming values does Heinz have to ensure the game day experience continues?
Bottom line… on-campus is the only way to go.
The building of “The Pete” has just delayed the process.
You are suggesting that a Billion dollar investment (which I think is a low-ball estimate) by the University would be well spent for the purpose of improving the game day experience of the…what, 10,000ish?…students that attend the game to the detriment of the 35-40,000 other paid spectators? The travel into Oakland for a big basketball game at the Pete puts strain on the infrastructure of the area. Now quintuple that for a football game in the same vicinity.
Further, a counter argument to your claim that an on-campus solution to a better game day experience in light of 6 or 7 win seasons is – what ACTUALLY happened at Pitt Stadium for all but a few years of the modern era of Pitt football. If Pitt Stadium had been overflowing with spectators, year after year (many of those years featured 6-7 win teams), yes, I would agree with you that an on-campus facility would not only be preferred but also rather obvious. That wasn’t the case however.
Yes, the University should strive to make the game day experience for the student more convenient and enjoyable. But I don’t think a capital investment of the kind that would be required to complete a project of this nature is even remotely plausible or appropriate.
Lastly, The Pete has been one of the most beneficial and well used capital improvements by a regional university that comes to mind. The Pete has no more delayed the process of “Pitt Stadium II” than it did the arrival of the Easter Bunny.
In my opinion, building the The Pete where it is was a horrible idea.
A basketball arena could have been built just about anywhere.
Besides, had Pitt just waited… it could be playing it’s basketball games at the Energy Consol Center.
Wait… it is.
Sold out since it was opened..used all year round by Pitt, students and city (concerts etc). When it was done considered one of the best venues in college hoops. Great college atmosphere for students.
Sounds exactly what you say your football stadium wants to be?
Your ridiculous responses like this is why no one should take your stadium idea serious.
Pitt only plays Duquesne at Consol and if your a city of Pittsburgh fan that’s the only place it should be played…One my favorite games of the year…half the place Gold and other side Red..two competing student sections..I just wish Duquesne was a little better to make the games closer…the double OT game a few years was awesome.
Good luck trying to turn back time and chasing down your unicorn.
If you REALLY read what he said, you wouldn’t have said what you said.
“….building the Pete WHERE IT IS was …..”
No doubt we think big here in Texas. The negativity expressed by so many posters about an on campus stadium is pretty funny.
Here in Houston, UH got screwed by the Big East’s disintegration but still tore down their on campus stadium and are replacing it on the same site with a new 40,000 seat venue. It will be decked out in red and white with the UH logo just about everywhere.
The same run down neighborhoods surround UH as surround Pitt. The difference between Nordenberg and the UH president is obvious. President Khator has a vision for athletic and academic excellence. Nordenberg has two concerns: the academic reputation of Pitt and expanding UPMC (which, by the way, should be funding a large portion of the stadium’s cost).
UH won’t be receiving $17 million per year like Pitt, nor do they have a billion dollar endowment like Pitt. They have vision and the will to see it through.
By the way, Reliant Stadium is about five miles from the UH campus. It beats Heinz Field as a comfortable venue to watch sporting events. UH is playing their games there this year while their new stadium is being built. After spending several decades off campus at the Astrodome, the university has learned it wants no part of a permanent pro venue.
Yinzer attitude, provincialism, and leadership that gives lip service to big time athletics and praises Pederson for doing a good job when the record speaks for itself – that’s why Pitt will play in a rent-a-stadium for years to come.
Miami doesn’t have half the advantages Pitt has but, like Pitt, they’ve stuck their football team at Sun Life Stadium, allowing the historic Orange Bowl to be demolished so Shalala could enrich the univesity’s coffers.
It’s easy to see why Pittsburgh is just surviving and Houston is booming.
“It’s easy to see why Pittsburgh is just surviving and Houston is booming.”
Cute line.
You know what else Texas does big? Flat land. I know…call me a provincial Yinzer, but for some odd reason I just can’t get past the actual physical limitations of Oakland when considering shoehorning a stadium onto a postage stamp plot and engineering the requisite infrastructure needed for a facility as presented above. Oh, and of course you gloss over the fact that the University of Houston is situated on a campus at least three times as large as Pitt’s Oakland footprint.
By the way, Nordenberg’s number one concern is the stewardship of the University (as it should be) and his focus on UPMC is limited to his role on their Board of Directors. Part of that stewardship was his highly influential role in trying to solidify the Big East and then once that was impossible, his principle efforts in aligning Pitt with the ACC. Thats hardly lip service to athletics. Are you willing to recognize that Pitt was far closer to becoming Fordham than Duke in 1995 in athletic sense. I can’t think of an administration that has invested MORE into athletics over the last 50 years than Nordenberg’s.
Now, you want to think big and buy all of the land from Magee to Bouquet Street, level it, build a stadium, practice facilities, student housing, ancillary university buildings, parking, and the necessary ingress and egress improvements to the Parkway, Forbes, Fifth and Bates? Hell yeah, I’m in. I’ll even buy a brick and give an extra $500. But all of that is gonna add up to a WHOLE lot more than $700MM. You think UPMC is going to foot the bill? You think you are going to fill the hole with Pitt supporters stroking $500 checks??? You must have a silent Billionaire benefactor in your back pocket….right?
I agree with everything you just said – except the part about demoloshing all of Oakland from Magee to Bouquet.
Pitt, and Oakland itself, are limited by the geography – We’ve got a river to the south, a large park to the east which will NEVER allow a stadium, and an affluent enclave to the North (Shadyside) which is too cost prohibitive to consider for expansion.
As a crow flies, Beaver Stadium is well over a mile from Old Main, but there is no way putting a stadium a mile/mile-and-a-half from the Cathedral would be considered “on-campus” for Pitt; even putting in in the Hill District, which is very close to the Cathedral if you look on a map, seems like a completely different world than Oakland – not for the racial component, but because of the huge hill that physically separates the Oakland and the Hill. It simply wouldn’t feel like an on-campus game day experience.
Panther Hollow is a dump and an eyesore as is most of South Oakland.
Most of those ppl would be tickled pink I would imagine if anyone offered them anything for those dumps, just to get out. Who wouldn’t.
That whole area could be transformed into something on the order of the South Side Works with residential areas for students and some sort of multi-use football/condo stadium.
Preserving an eyesore makes no sense at all and people move all the time, it’s called progress.