Tag: renovations

Saints share must-see drone tour video of renovated Caesars Superdome

The New Orleans Saints shared a must-see drone tour video of the renovated Caesars Superdome. The home of Super Bowl LIX looks sharp:

https://twitter.com/Saints/status/1831064237051199681

This is too cool. A ton of time and money have been invested in renovating the Caesars Superdome ahead of the 2024 season and Super Bowl LIX, and you can tell. The New Orleans Saints shared an impressive drone camera video highlighting all of the new changes, and it’s well worth a watch. You can find it here.

You get a good look at the upgraded concourses, improved stadium seating, and open-air atriums as well as areas that aren’t public-facing like the locker room, media conference room, and other spaces behind the scenes. Using an aerial drone to cover almost every inch of the arena was a great choice.

And this overhaul was intended to extend the longevity of the venue; time will tell if that approach works out, but it’s easy to walk away from this tour feeling impressed. The Saints have played home games at the Superdome since 1975, with New Orleans hosting ten Super Bowls — soon tying the Miami’s record with eleven. While the Chicago Bears and Buffalo Bills each have plans in the works for new stadiums, the Saints will trail only the Kansas City Chiefs (at Arrowhead Stadium since 1972) and Green Bay Packers (at Lambeu Field since 1957) as playing at the most-venerable homefields around the NFL in the near future.

With big events on the horizon including nine Saints home games, the Super Bowl, college football bowl games and major musician tours, we should expect the Caesars Superdome to continue to play host to high-profile events for years to come.

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Caesars Superdome renovations include upgraded Wi-Fi, cell service

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on renovations for the Caesars Superdome. One point of emphasis? Upgraded Wi-Fi and cellular service:

New Orleans Saints fans will soon get their first up-close look at extensive renovations to the Caesars Superdome, which has seen $560 million in work to upgrade the venue’s facilities over the last few years.

While this work has touched all aspects at the stadium from new field-level suites to improved concessions offerings, more-spacious atriums and concourses and smoother crowd movement, today we’re getting a look at the infrastructure behind cell service and Wi-Fi Internet access. Anyone who futilely tried to call their ride while navigating the crowded, sloping concrete ramps that mazed through the Superdome before knows that struggle.

“The usage of technology by our fans as part of their gameday experience and their demands will continue to increase,” Team president Dennis Lauscha told the Saints website. “It is important to provide the strongest and most reliable connectivity for our fans as possible with the Caesars Superdome transformation project. With these upgrades, we will offer a guest experience that features the most effective wireless technology available.”

An array of 16 new MatSing MS-48H180 antennas has been bolted to the Superdome roof and painted black to avoid standing out to the naked eye; each weighs about 600 pounds and is rated for hurricane-force winds. A matching set was installed to the building’s interior, complimenting the 200 extant antennas, creating a mesh that is expected to improve cellular service as the Saints’ season continues. The setup is designed for “high-density environments” and can be tweaked by engineers as they gather data on how and where the heaviest usage occurs.

Improving cell phone service is just part of the project. Making wireless Internet access more convenient is part of their ambitions, too. The Superdome has added 2,500 new Wi-Fi access points all throughout the venue to creative more comprehensive coverage for fans, media, and the teams themselves. Keeping people connected with reliable service is a major boon.

So these are big steps in the right direction — towards a goal of keeping the Caesars Superdome in its place as a world-class venue for sports and entertainment. The goal is to continue hosting Super Bowls (including this year’s championship game), ambitious tours by superstar musicians like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, and major events like Wrestlemania, Monster Jam, and the NCAA basketball tournament, just to name a few. These upgrades help ensure greater longevity for the Superdome and avoid a costly new stadium construction. Hopefully the Saints and the Superdome officials can get a deal pushed across the finish line to keep the team playing there for the decades ahead.

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Saints say poor NFLPA report card didn’t spark cafeteria renovations

Saints team president Dennis Lauscha said a poor NFLPA report card didn’t spark major cafeteria renovations. It’s a move that’s been years in the making:

It doesn’t sound like the New Orleans Saints’ leadership team was surprised to receive a poor grade on their team’s food options, but that doesn’t mean recent NFL Players Association report cards prompted extensive renovations to the cafeteria. The Saints were graded with an F in both 2023 and 2022 for their food/cafeteria offerings. So it’s easy to speculate that ongoing cafeteria construction (which is sending the team’s 2024 training camp to California) could be a response to that performance.

Team president Dennis Lauscha tackled that topic in a recent press conference with local media, in his opening statement: “And the truth of the matter is, I’ll cut through it all: We’re doing this because we want to have the best facilities in the National Football League.”

Lauscha described a series of phases to renovations that began with the locker room, training room, meeting rooms, and other areas in the team headquarters like the draft room. Now it’s time to work on the cafeteria and indoor practice facility. So when did those plans first come into motion?

“2019, we started planning for the cafeteria,” said Maureen Clary, a consultant and broker associate with Corporate Realty, an agency that Saints owner Gayle Benson purchased back in 2021.

Saints chief financial officer Ed Lang chimed in: “I have a full set of plans up in my office, literally the full set that’s dated April of 2020. So those were finished in April 2020. That was COVID. We were actually going to start this project a lot earlier, and then COVID hit.”

“We couldn’t get the steel for it,” Lauscha added, with Clary explaining that the pandemic’s logistical hurdles limited access to both raw materials and complex equipment like power transformers. He continued, “It’s coming together now. I mean this with an abundance of respect for any grade that’s out there, but this definitely isn’t why we’re doing what we’re doing here. We really do want to have the best facility that we can. Even when that grade came out, if we said let’s start then, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

It’s an ambitious plan. The Saints are increasing the cafeteria from 6,000 square feet to 14,000, with the kitchen scaling up from just 1,000 square feet to 4,000. They’re placing an emphasis on fresh food storage and new amenities like carving stations, smoothie bars, and a DEXA body scan (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) to help players track their body fat content as part of the nutrition program.

On top of that, the Saints are expanding the dining area to include outdoor seating and an overlook to the indoor practice facility. Work is expected to be finished by November, though Lauscha is hopeful to have everything in its place by September. Either way, the Saints plan on returning to New Orleans for their 2025 training camp.

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Caesars Superdome renovations on track to be completed before Super Bowl LIX

New Orleans officials announced that Caesars Superdome renovations are on schedule to be completed before Super Bowl LIX:

Ongoing renovations to the Caesars Superdome are progressing well and on track for completion before Super Bowl LIX, city officials shared this week. The home of the New Orleans Saints will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year after hosting the NFL’s championship game, and construction crews have been hard at work executing more than $500 million in upgrades to improve the visitor experience and the arena’s longevity.

Work on this extensive remodeling began back in 2019 and is expected to be completed in June. That will pave the way for the Saints to host their preseason and regular season home games at home leading up to Super Bowl LIX.

Enhanced food service options, a new entry system of escalators and widened concourses, field-level seating and standing room-only platforms, as well as modern interior lighting and more amenities are all aimed to ensuring the Caesars Superdome remains a first-class venue for decades ahead. Initially priced at $450 million, costs for these renovations have climbed to $535 million as the project moves into its final phase.

So what could be next? The next leg of Taylor Swift’s global “The Eras Tour” will make a stop in New Orleans during the middle of the Saints’ 2024 season, but it’s just one of many high-profile events planned for the Caesars Superdome.

Super Bowl host committee president and Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation CEO Jay Cicero shared a list of big-ticket targets: “We’re talking to the NCAA; we’re talking a WrestleMania, and we’re talking to other groups about bringing their big events back to New Orleans. This renovation is certainly going to be a feather in our cap.”

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Florida Gators athletic director reveals details for stadium renovations

Florida Gators athletic director Scott Stricklin appeared on WRUF/ESPN Gainesville to detail the renovations of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium

The Swamp… where only Gators get out alive.

An iconic structure in the college football universe, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is being set to undergo a large renovation following the 2024 football season, and there’s a lot of negative opinions stemming from the Florida faithful because its reported the project may reduce the total capacity of the stadium.

The Florida Gators always carry a significant advantage while playing at home with a 88,548 capacity, so rumors of reducing the number immediately sparked an uproar among Florida die-hards.

UF athletic director Scott Stricklin made an appearance on Sportscene, a WRUF/ESPN Gainesville radio program to clear the air and shed more light on what Striklin and the UAA are planning.

“At one point I think we might have mentioned that we might have to reduce capacity. That is not the goal,” Stricklin said. “The goal is to be in a situation where we can have the same number of Gator fans that have been coming the last 30 years to continue to come. In a perfect world, we don’t impact capacity negatively and we’re able to be at the same number.”

Stricklin also stated that he sees the project as more of a “restoration” and that is why he hired Crawford Architects, a company that oversaw the update of the historic baseball stadium Fenway Park in Boston. The athletic director wants to keep the iconic structure intact, but improve the overall quality.

“The wing walls, the proximity of the fans to the field,” Stricklin said. “Not putting a bunch of chairbacks everywhere just because that does take away from what makes it unique. We’re going to be very careful whatever we do. We don’t know exactly what that is.”

“We’ll start in the next eight to twelve months and come up with an idea that we can take to Gator Nation and say, this is the vision,” Stricklin continued. “That’s going to be significant because obviously, it’s the most important facility we have.”

Only time will tell what happens to the beloved stadium, but Florida fans are rightfully anxious to see what results will show from the project. The important part is Stricklin is listening to the fans and understands the concern for arguably the most important building on campus.

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5 stadiums that could host Jaguars during TIAA Bank Field renovation

If the Jaguars are forced out of TIAA Bank Field for a couple years, where would they call their temporary home?

The Jacksonville Jaguars are on the lookout for a stadium that can be their temporary home in future seasons, according to Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry.

In an interview with 1010XL on Wednesday, Curry said that renovations of TIAA Bank Field could happen in 2025 and 2026, and the Jaguars will likely need to find a temporary home elsewhere while the construction is ongoing.

While Curry said that the Jaguars hope to keep the games in Jacksonville, that plan doesn’t exactly seem feasible. No stadium in the city outside of TIAA Bank Field can even seat 10,000 fans for a football game.

So if the Jaguars really do need to find a temporary home two years from now, where could it be? Here are the five most logical options:

Lenny Curry: Jaguars may play elsewhere during 2-year renovation

Jacksonville mayor Lenny Curry says the Jaguars are likely to play at an alternate site during the expected renovation of TIAA Bank Field.

The Jacksonville Jaguars appear to be nearing a massive renovation of TIAA Bank Field. According to Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, that project will likely force the Jaguars to play elsewhere for a couple years.

“Best case scenario, I expect that the renovation will take two years, two seasons,” Curry said Wednesday on 1010XL. “The team will have to play somewhere else. The goal would be to play somewhere in Jacksonville. Those discussions are happening. Two years is the goal.

“I know that [the Jaguars] are considering certain sites that are local that could accommodate them for at least two years. … The goal is to play those games in Jacksonville. I know they care about that.”

No deal is currently in place for the renovation, although negotiations between the city of Jacksonville and the Jaguars are ongoing. In October, the Florida Times-Union reported that the price tag for the project is expected to be in the $600 million-$1 billion range.

Curry, whose term as mayor ends on July 1, said that he doesn’t expect a deal to be wrapped up before the next administration takes over. He also said that the renovation will make TIAA Bank Field look like “a brand-new stadium” and that 2025 and 2026 are likeliest to be the seasons when construction takes place.

Any deal between the mayor’s office and the Jaguars will also need to be approved by both the Jacksonville City Council as well as the other NFL team owners.

While Curry says the Jaguars hope to play games at an alternate site in Jacksonville, there aren’t many options. Even if the team hopes to follow in the Los Angeles Chargers’ footsteps by playing in a tiny stadium (the Chargers played in the 27,000-seat Dignity Health Sports Park for three seasons), there’s no facility aside from TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville even close to that size.

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Poll: Voters don’t want to split cost for Jaguars stadium upgrades

Renovations of TIAA Bank Field are expected to exceed $600 million and Jacksonville voters don’t want to foot the bill.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are still working through their plans for a renovation of TIAA Bank Field, but voters aren’t interested in picking up the bill.

According to the Jacksonville Business Journal, a poll of likely voters in Duval County from the University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab found that 61 percent were opposed to the idea of the public splitting the cost of the project.

In October, the Florida Times-Union reported that the price tag for the renovation is expected to be in the $600 million to $1 billion range. What percentage the Jaguars will ask from the City of Jacksonville remains to be seen.

While voters aren’t excited about the idea of taxpayers shelling out millions for the stadium renovation, their opinion of the Jaguars was overwhelmingly positive.

The poll found that 86 percent approved of quarterback Trevor Lawrence, 84 percent approved of head coach Doug Pederson, and 71 percent approved of owner Shad Khan. The poll also found 84 percent said that it’s important for the city to keep the Jaguars.

The Jaguars’ lease at TIAA Bank Field — which will soon be renamed — is set to expire after the 2029 season.

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Florida planning significant upgrade to football stadium

The Gators have plans to upgrade Ben Hill Griffin Stadium ahead of the 2024 season and it’s going to cost a pretty penny.

The Florida Gators are planning to significantly upgrade Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, according to athletic director [autotag]Scott Stricklin[/autotag] who appeared on ESPN 98.1 WRUF’s “Sportscene” Monday.

While blueprints haven’t been finalized, Stricklin says the athletic department has a general idea for the kind of renovations it wants and the upgrade is going to be significant. Of course, bringing the Swamp further into the 21st century costs a pretty penny.

“That is going to be by far the most ambitious facility project not only the University of Florida has ever done from an athletic standpoint, but it might be the biggest in SEC history, maybe even as big as any nationally,” Stricklin said. “It’s going to be, my guess is to fully renovate the Swamp, you’re looking at a few hundred million dollars.”

Florida’s last major upgrade to the stadium came in 2003 when the press box was expanded and club-level seats and luxury boxes were added. That project cost $55 million, so Florida is planning on a much larger facelift this time around.

“Really what you want to do is you want to make sure Ben Hill Griffin Stadium extends its useful life for several generations. Not a 10- or 15-year fix but a 75-year fix.”

New video boards and aesthetics are just the beginning of what is planned. Structural renovations will ensure the venue is among the top in college football for years to come, and some more space could be opened for gameday use.

It’s an ambitious project, but Stricklin has already done well building a new home for Florida baseball (Condron Ballpark) and the new Heavener Training Center.

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Jaguars hire design firm for TIAA Bank Field renovation proposals

The Jaguars are one step closer to a major renovation of TIAA Bank Field.

The Jacksonville Jaguars hired architecture firm HOK to serve as a design consultant for a proposed renovation of TIAA Bank Field, team president Mark Lamping told VenuesNow last week.

“This is not a project yet,” Lamping told VenuesNow. “We wanted to be in a place where we knew what the renovated stadium could look like and how do you renovate while still trying to play NFL games. We’re in a good spot. If we do go forward, we will essentially end up with a new stadium built on the existing structure.”

In October, Lamping told the Florida Times-Union that the Jaguars were in the preliminary stages of designing renovations at the team’s stadium. According to VenuesNow, HOK won the job over seven competitors that all submitted preliminary concepts for the work.

The Jaguars have played at TIAA Bank Field since their first season in the NFL in 1995. In the nearly three decades since it opened, the stadium has undergone a few renovations including the construction of 362-foot scoreboards and swimming pools.

At the top of the list of priorities this time is the construction of a shade roof.

“One of the things that we found that we have confidence in is just how comfortable a stadium can be that has a full roof, if you’re sensitive to air flow,” Lamping said. “We don’t need a climate-controlled building in Jacksonville any more than they need one in LA, but we do need shade on all the seats and protection from the rain if we hope to increase the amount of non-NFL business that we can give back to the stadium.”

Among previous NFL work for HOK was Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ, and the recent renovation to add a roof canopy at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.