Regents Approve Schembechler Rennovations, Marquee Project (w/Pics)
http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/071912aab.html
July 19, 2012
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan Board of Regents approved two significant athletic projects during its monthly meeting held today (Thursday, July 19) in the Rogel Ballroom at the Michigan Union. The Regents approved the schematic design for Schembechler Hall and approved a marquee that will be located just inside Gate 2 of Michigan Stadium (southeast corner).
"These projects are designed to enhance the student-athlete and fan experience in an innovative way," said Dave Brandon, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics. "The marquee will provide a new avenue for our department to communicate with our fans, and the Schembechler Hall renovations will present an opportunity to better celebrate our rich football tradition. We will create a grand entrance to the facility that announces you've arrived at the home of Michigan Football."
The Regents approved the schematic design for a $9 million renovation to Schembechler Hall. The project will add approximately 7,000 square feet to the home of Michigan football and renovate approximately 7,000 square feet of the facility. The exterior will be designed to match the facade at Glick Field House and Yost Ice Arena. The interior will feature a complete overhaul of the museum space, including an area to honor the Michigan Football Legends, as well as new exhibit, office and recruiting spaces.
Athletics will install a $2.8 million marquee that will be visible from the east and west along Stadium Blvd. The board will stand 21 feet above grade and will be 27 feet wide by 48 feet long. The marquee will be used to welcome guests to events at both Michigan Stadium and Crisler Center. In addition, the marquee will promote upcoming athletic events, highlight team and student-athlete achievements, and promote other department initiatives. It will have both video and audio capabilities.
Following are features of the marquee project and Schembechler Hall renovations:
Marquee Project
Cost: $2.8 million
Location: Inside Gate 2 of Michigan Stadium (southeast corner)
Dimensions: 27' high by 48' wide; bottom is 21' above grade and reaches 48' (comparison: stadium scoreboard is 62' high by 108' wide)
Programming: Welcome guests to events, promote upcoming events, announce team and individual student-athlete achievements; there are no plans to have paid advertising appear on the boards.
Sound: There will be a row of speakers across the bottom of the board; athletics will follow the U-M Sound Ordinance (10 p.m.)
Marquee Rendering
Schembechler Hall rendering
That Schembechler Hall rendering looks awesome. The "Home of Michigan Football" deserves a grand, awe-inspiring entry. I wonder how they plan on doing the inside. I imagine the museum-thing would probably go in there.
It looks beautiful. All we need now is a bronze statue of Bo at the front. Fritz Crisler statue at Crisler Center, Fielding Yost statue at Yost and Bob Ufer in one of the concourses at The Big House. Kind of like how the Tigers have one of ernie harwell, Ufer deserves one.
Absolutely. A full-on statue, not just a bust. Maybe Bo throwing his headset?
It is Schembechler Hall, so there's that. I'd like to see pone of these pictures made into a statue:
Or the pissed-off-at-something-grumpy-Bo:
Or, the original pointer:
When Hoke retires in 2035 with a dozen national championships, what gets named after him? I wonder if the University will ever run out of buildings to name after people.
Just a shot in the dark. Whatever.
I can't decide. How about all 4?
I don't want any statues. I don't think Bo would want one either. Remember: "No man is bigger than the team. No coach is bigger than the team. The team, the team, the team!"
at least.
Bo would've never wanted to be deified, he was all about the team. I don't like the "marquee"... just a Frenchie name for a billboard, something we don't need at the Big House. Spending $3 million to tell people who Michigan is playing that day, what a grand idea Brandon.
~Herm
It's his building, he deserves it. Just like every man who has a building named after him. Canham statue at the 'Nat, Crisler at the Crisler Center, Yost at Yost Arena and Ray Fisher at the stadium.
I find this whole trend of putting up statues of sports guys pretty tacky. It's a football building, not a war memorial.
Besides, why do they need a statue when they already have a building named after them?
how about a statue of "the team". Not quite Band of Brothers logo, but something that makes you think of the unity and timelessness of the concept
was just remembering when they built that place and the entry was considered grand and awe-inspiring
Dreams grow over time when properly fed and watered. Now our imaginations demand more substance as our expectations have grown.
According to a Free Press article, the entrance will in fact have a statue of Bo:
A statue of Bo Schembechler will stand in the entrance to the building and a wall will have his famous words “those who stay will be champions” inscribed on it.
The article also mentions this:
In the middle of the museum will be a “beacon” that will be covered with footballs representing each of the program’s victories.
I agree, its way too big for the area......shembechler hall looks amazing!
SCHEMBECHLER hall.
Take a look at this other rendering, which gives the view of marquee from the corner of Main and Stadium. It looks fine to me from this angle.
The above was linked to from an Ann Arbor Chronicle article. In the previous thread on this, someone suggested the marquee would be better placed at the corner of Main and Stadium. This was addressed at the meeting:
Regent Andy Richner asked about traffic volumes along Main Street. Brandon replied that although the marquee is visible from the intersection of Main and Stadium, it’s primarily intended for the heavy traffic of Stadium Boulevard. Brandon noted that the west side of Michigan Stadium is built to the sidewalk on Main Street, so there’s no room for this kind of sign on that side.
The article also included a completion date:
TMP Architecture will design the marquee, and installation is expected by the fall of 2013.
To be clear: this is a different marquee than the one being discussed "on Stadium," correct?
No, it's the one that was discussed around here earlier this week.
I really like the Schembechler Hall concept - that seems to suggest an entry that is befitting Michigan football (and every program really). I would love to know what the inside would look like - hopefully like a mini-museum all by itself (a Bo statue would be a great idea, yes).
It will be interesting to see the final placement of the marquee around Gate 2. If they place this correctly and make it meld a little better with the aesthetic around that gate, I think it works well. I like the idea as a way to promote the entire athletic department really.
I remember reading once that Bo and his father stopped in Ann Arbor after a fishing trip when Bo was in his teens, they stopped and were standing looking through the gates of the practice field watching Crisler's team. It turns out, where they were standing is the same spot where Schembechler Hall stands today.
Funny how things work.
Great location for basketball and football. I thought it would look worse.
Who doesn't love a little mirrored mobile madness?
Pretty sure it doesnt have HDMI either...fail.
I don't like the huge sign. Can't they find a better place to put it than that?
Here's another rendering of the marquee, posted with an annarbor.com article:
It looks gaudy and flashy, something Michigan football is not. This is just one step closer to Dave Brandon's ultimate goal - making more and more money! Wait until there are small sponsorships showing in the corner of the sign, then quick flashes of local car dealerships with former players speaking... Brandon will argue that "The "Marquee" isn't in the stadium, so advertising is fine." This has to be put to and end and people have to starting showing some resistance to this intrusive behavior.
~Herm
I get your point Herm, and I don't disagree with your overall sentiment. However - not all ways of generating revenue are bad. We have an ad-free stadium, and we all like that. However, we need to keep up with the teams who have a stadium full of ads, so we there have to be other ways to make up that revenue. Otherwise, we have less money to spend on facilities, coaches, etc. and are at a competitive disadvantage.
I'm not in favor of sacrificing our traditions for success, but I am in favor of thinking outside of the box a bit. One of those ways is to put up a marquee letting people know about who the volleyball or soccer team is playing this weekend, or that the Big Ten swimming championships are being hosted in Ann Arbor this year. Flashing a Varsity Ford ad every few minutes isn't going to kill anybody either.
Non-revenue sports are named as such for a reason: they do not generate (almost) any revenue, and certainly not even close to any profit. Granted, getting an extra (let us be honest here) 30 people to attend a soccer game will have a completely negligible effect on the net revenue as a whole, and would undoubtedly not pay for the "Marquee" and most likely, not even the electricity to run the damn thing!
A change such as selling alcohol in the stadium would generate FAR greater sums of money if that's what Michigan sports have actually come down to... the pursuit of the almighty dollar. What a farce, they are just looking for ways to spend money. And yes, ads might darn well kill someone, and that someone will most likely be me with the effect Dave Brandon has had on my blood pressure these past few months.
~Herm
Wow, the marquee strikes me as a huge waste of $. If we really have pots of $ lying around, there have got to be better ways to spend it.
it definitely isn't a waste of money. It will pay for itself with the ad revenue it will bring in. Yes, their will be ads. I don't care what they are saying right now.
They should have thought about this when they took the old video boards down, the crane could have just rotated 180 and set them down on the slabs. Could have saved a lot of money.
...and say that the scheme for Schembechler Hall is instantly dated, and is a crime against the great architecture elsewhere on Central Campus. This proposal is cowardly in its conservativism, and would be perfectly comfortable on North Campus (maybe next to Art & Architecture), which is where weak modernism and faux-veneer historicism have been awkwardly combined with the greatest rigor.
Furthermore, it pains me to point out that a better version of what Integrated Architecture is trying to do here appears up the road. They did it better, and it is still not good:
This is Michigan. We have one of the world's best architecture schools. And we get that?
...about the box - it seemed like an innocuous addition to me, and anyway what happens inside of a luxury box is a lot different from the public face of the campus.
To address your comment about the halo, the failure of that project was in architect selection, not design. When Bollinger selected Venturi Scott Brown, anyone with any knowledge of contemporary architecture and Michigan football could have told you that many of their projects have a winking levity that probably wasn't going to end well.
You don't stop going to restaurants because you don't like Thai food, and Michigan shouldn't gleefully keep building mediocre architecture simply because it is uncontroversial. Had we acted like this earlier in the school's history, we wouldn't have the buildlings that most of us love and make the campus what it is - Alumni Hall, Angell, Rackham, Clements Library, and so on.
Schools like Cincinnati and and Texas have shown that it is possible to have good contemporary architecture on campus - why not here?