Construction

Today I took some time and took a walk around campus to see some of the construction and how things are going about. I drive by the stadium a few times a week so none of that was new to me, but I'm sure there's some on here that would love to see an update. I didn't take a ton of pictures of the stadium - we're at the point where we kinda know what we're getting, so these reflect the little work left to be done IMO.

Also included: Crisler/Practice Facility construction is underway, the Law School is getting a new building south of it and north of the Ford School, and North Quad is approaching completion and is quite simply stunning. I'm considering going back out either tomorrow or later this week to hit up the Soccer complex, wrestling complex, and Hospital addition, so hopefully I can post some pictures on those. If anyone has any requests, let me know!

Click on each picture to see that respective set in lightbox mode. I saved them at about 1160 width, so if you enlarge them they won't blow up your screen.

Disclaimer: As I got to the stadium, I realized my camera was almost dead (it died at North Quad), so I avoided playing with settings and spending any unneccesary time with it on. As such, quality is good, but not great.

Here's what's happening with Crisler and the new Basketball facility. I really didn't expect to see all this once I turned the corner and started heading east on Stadium Boulevard. There's not a ton of insight here as to what's it come, but it's interesting to see they've already completely torn out that hill on the southwest corner of the arena.

Moving on to campus, here's some pictures of the new Law School building and some construction on Law Quad/Law Research building. There's talks that the University is trying to get the street between the soon-to-be new building and Law Quad to be a pedestrian only street. That would be pretty nice and something I'm in favor of.

Here's North Quad. Quite simply, it's amazing. There's no doubt in my mind that it has to be the premier facility/building/dorm in B10 country. The pictures fail to relate just how huge North Quad is. The first picture kinda shows how tall the southwest tower of North Quad is, just a little shorter than the Bell Tower. The northwest plaza looks great (near the end of the pictures). Unfortunately my camera died right after the last picture.

As an alum living in Tampa, I'm curious to hear mgonation's account of its experience at The New Big House (TNBH) from Saturday.

I understand that construction is not yet completed, but figure that most of us will probably never take in a game from a luxury box anyway.  Accordingly, now is a good time to compare experiences from years past, which are still fresh in our heads, to those at TNBH.

Of course, all experiences from TNBH are welcomed/encouraged, but a few questions on which I'd be interested to hear feedback are as follows:

• How was the flow of fans around the exterior of the stadium with the new towers in place?
• Is it any easier/harder to get into your gate?
• Is it any easier to get to/through concession lines?
• Is it any quicker to get through the bathroom lines?
• Aesthetically, how do the towers look in person from inside and outside of the stadium?
• Do the towers make the stadium look more imposing, or do they look at all too big and/or out of place?
• And most importantly, was there a noticable difference in volume inside the stadium?  It sounded pretty loud on TV, but of course the fans had more to cheer about at this game than most games from last year.  If you were positioned at or near field level, I am particularly interested to hear your feedback.

Thanks.  Go Blue!

Is the old press box still being used this season or is the new box ready to go? It's impossible to tell from outside the stadium. If no one knows, I guess we'll all find out in 3 days(!).

Check it out, pics on FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP:

www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=C4&Date=20080716&Category=SPORT...