DakotaDome Renovations 2019

[THE PRIDE IS BACK!!!]

usd is moving forward with the Dome renovations. They will begin in February and be complete before the 2020 season. They will still play in the Dome this year, but only the main side (the East side) will be used. I'm not sure how that will affect the student section for the 2019 season or where they will be moved after this is all over. The site below gives a pretty good idea of how the Dome will look when it is done.


https://spark.adobe.com/page/2f5QoU0WWzUrD/

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

A couple thoughts:

1) New capacity is just a shade over 9k. Per the Coyote board, Herbster mentioned that there are currently about 2k seats on the west side, which will be enlarged to 4,000 to bring the total capacity to somewhere between 9k and 9.5k. So, the capacity of the dome has actually been 7k to 7.5k for a while now, and their "capacity crowds of 10k" announced were off by 2.5 thousand. No big deal either way, but to put that in perspective, any time the dome was 3/4 full in the last decade, about 5.5k fans were in attendance.

2) If the students remain on the west side, above the proposed loges/suites, I can't imagine that will be a fun experience for anyone paying those higher prices: you'll have a bunch of drunk college kids right above you and your family, with all the profanity and party fouls right behind you. Maybe their drunk students are better behaved than ours, but I'd imagine that if we had suites below our student section, a lot of our high end donors would have drinks spilled/poured on them by drunk idiots. I've seen it happen here, so I don't know why it wouldn't down there. Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't want my suite to be right below students. Maybe the student section down there will be moving, making this a non-issue.

[hareball]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

A couple thoughts:

1) New capacity is just a shade over 9k. Per the Coyote board, Herbster mentioned that there are currently about 2k seats on the west side, which will be enlarged to 4,000 to bring the total capacity to somewhere between 9k and 9.5k. So, the capacity of the dome has actually been 7k to 7.5k for a while now, and their "capacity crowds of 10k" announced were off by 2.5 thousand. No big deal either way, but to put that in perspective, any time the dome was 3/4 full in the last decade, about 5.5k fans were in attendance.

2) If the students remain on the west side, above the proposed loges/suites, I can't imagine that will be a fun experience for anyone paying those higher prices: you'll have a bunch of drunk college kids right above you and your family, with all the profanity and party fouls right behind you. Maybe their drunk students are better behaved than ours, but I'd imagine that if we had suites below our student section, a lot of our high end donors would have drinks spilled/poured on them by drunk idiots. I've seen it happen here, so I don't know why it wouldn't down there. Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't want my suite to be right below students. Maybe the student section down there will be moving, making this a non-issue.

Pretty sure the student section will be moved to the east side. The renovation includes a new home locker room on the west side, so am guessing the west side will be the home side of the Dome

[NWHSUandSDSU]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

9000 total or was that for the one side after renovation

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

According to the cited link and Herbster''s tweets, the total capacity will be increasing to 9-9.5k overall. There were 5500 seats on the east side, and 2000 on the west side according to the tweets. West side capacity will increase by 2k for a total of 4k on the west and 5.5k on the east, or 9.5 k total. The article mentions more like 9.1k total.

Also, the student section is moving while construction is underway, but I haven't seen anything confirming that it will be permanently moved to the east side.

[RabbitObsessed]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

A couple thoughts:

1) New capacity is just a shade over 9k. Per the Coyote board, Herbster mentioned that there are currently about 2k seats on the west side, which will be enlarged to 4,000 to bring the total capacity to somewhere between 9k and 9.5k. So, the capacity of the dome has actually been 7k to 7.5k for a while now, and their "capacity crowds of 10k" announced were off by 2.5 thousand. No big deal either way, but to put that in perspective, any time the dome was 3/4 full in the last decade, about 5.5k fans were in attendance.

2) If the students remain on the west side, above the proposed loges/suites, I can't imagine that will be a fun experience for anyone paying those higher prices: you'll have a bunch of drunk college kids right above you and your family, with all the profanity and party fouls right behind you. Maybe their drunk students are better behaved than ours, but I'd imagine that if we had suites below our student section, a lot of our high end donors would have drinks spilled/poured on them by drunk idiots. I've seen it happen here, so I don't know why it wouldn't down there. Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't want my suite to be right below students. Maybe the student section down there will be moving, making this a non-issue.

EDIT to fit USD accuracy: you'll have a few drunk college kids right above you for one or two games for two quarters

[NWHSUandSDSU]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

This is one reason I’m against a dome structure. You can’t really do a serious expansion if needed. You lock yourself in and I’m assuming would be quite costly to expand the dome.

[2002jack]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

The west side will become the home side, and premium seating. The students will move to the east side along with the band and be on the visiting sideline.

[slosho]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

The west side will become the home side, and premium seating. The students will move to the east side along with the band and be on the visiting sideline.

they say on their site:

• A USD-worthy game experience with new permanent seating, club seating, concessions and services

So What's that less than Presentation College?

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

I still haven't seen anywhere confirm that the students and band moving to the east side is anything more than a temporary deal for the 19 and 20 seasons. Yote fans on their board are hopeful that is the permanent arrangement, but it doesn't appear that the new permanent student section has been figured out yet.

[Nidaros]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

This is one reason I’m against a dome structure. You can’t really do a serious expansion if needed. You lock yourself in and I’m assuming would be quite costly to expand the dome.

I suspect this is the downside of building a dome. No doubt this discussion came up when they were planning DJD. I personally think this is the one factor holding NDSU from moving to FBS, but they do love rings in Fargo so maybe they will stay FCS. To expand the Fargo Dome, is going to be costly.

[SoDakJack]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

I suspect this is the downside of building a dome. No doubt this discussion came up when they were planning DJD. I personally think this is the one factor holding NDSU from moving to FBS, but they do love rings in Fargo so maybe they will stay FCS. To expand the Fargo Dome, is going to be costly.

That is why if you build a dome, you have to also build it to allow expansion. That is why they get expensive.

[Nidaros]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

That is why if you build a dome, you have to also build it to allow expansion. That is why they get expensive.

Yes they do get expensive. I keep wondering if there will be expansion at the Fargo Dome. The permanent roof at Dakota Dome cost 13 million several years back. Replacing this same roof no doubt would cost at least a couple million more today. With Fargo Dome, it is city owned and that involves a whole set of different hoops to do any kind of improvement. If some one can show the city that an expansion would allow more concerts and other non-football events and more $$$ for the community, I think we will see an upgrade, but no one has come forward that I know of.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

What I find amazing about all this is the long term effect of this choice. It's highly unlikely that that there will be any major expansion/updates to the dome for the next 20 years after these two phases are done. Mayne im wrong about that, but i dont think they can do a rennovation like this every 5-10 years. And it sounds like the future east side expansion is more for things like restrooms, concessions, amenities, etc. So they are pretty much locked in to sub 10,000 attendance for quite some time now. I wonder if it was cost or structural limitations that determined that this 25 million + update would end up at 9k? Your have to think that the fundraiser's knew the time was now to go big and that a 40 million dollar campaign in 10 years to add another 4k seats isn't going to fly. Point being, I doubt it was cost that held this back from being and expansion to 12-15k. If it's the structure, I guess I'm a little surprised they opted to update the dome and lock themselves in there for another 20-50 years than consider a new stadium entirely. I understand they just spent some money on the new bb arena, but I would imagine that 40 million would have gotten them a 14k outdoor stadium (DJD cost 65 million at 19,348 seats and sky boxes). You can build an outdoor stadium with ideas of phased expansion for future needs without much issue, and the price tag would end up cheaper than this dome renovation combined with future phases.

I'm just surprised they made the choice to update the dome when the long term ramifications with that seem to outweigh the positives. Assuming they structurally can expand it to get to 12k-14k, based on the price tag with this expansion, you'd expect they'd need another 20-40 million to update and add in another 3k to 5k seats. By that time, the Dome renovations and updates will have cost more than DJD. And it's likely that an addition of 3k seats isn't going to come from the existing footprint, meaning the end zones would need to be reconfigured and I'm sure that would cost a lot more than this phase.

If I was a yote fan, I'd be pretty pissed. I'd be curious how many of their fans would have been in favor of building an outdoor stadium vs these proposed dome expansions.

[jakejc795]

Re: DakotaDome Renovations 2019

What I find amazing about all this is the long term effect of this choice. It's highly unlikely that that there will be any major expansion/updates to the dome for the next 20 years after these two phases are done. Mayne im wrong about that, but i dont think they can do a rennovation like this every 5-10 years. And it sounds like the future east side expansion is more for things like restrooms, concessions, amenities, etc. So they are pretty much locked in to sub 10,000 attendance for quite some time now. I wonder if it was cost or structural limitations that determined that this 25 million + update would end up at 9k? Your have to think that the fundraiser's knew the time was now to go big and that a 40 million dollar campaign in 10 years to add another 4k seats isn't going to fly. Point being, I doubt it was cost that held this back from being and expansion to 12-15k. If it's the structure, I guess I'm a little surprised they opted to update the dome and lock themselves in there for another 20-50 years than consider a new stadium entirely. I understand they just spent some money on the new bb arena, but I would imagine that 40 million would have gotten them a 14k outdoor stadium (DJD cost 65 million at 19,348 seats and sky boxes). You can build an outdoor stadium with ideas of phased expansion for future needs without much issue, and the price tag would end up cheaper than this dome renovation combined with future phases.

I'm just surprised they made the choice to update the dome when the long term ramifications with that seem to outweigh the positives. Assuming they structurally can expand it to get to 12k-14k, based on the price tag with this expansion, you'd expect they'd need another 20-40 million to update and add in another 3k to 5k seats. By that time, the Dome renovations and updates will have cost more than DJD. And it's likely that an addition of 3k seats isn't going to come from the existing footprint, meaning the end zones would need to be reconfigured and I'm sure that would cost a lot more than this phase.

If I was a yote fan, I'd be pretty pissed. I'd be curious how many of their fans would have been in favor of building an outdoor stadium vs these proposed dome expansions.

I'd be curious about the extent to which HS football championships impacted decision. You'd have to think Vermilion would lose those (possibly to Brookings or Sioux Falls) sans dome. That's not to say that annual economic stimulus exceeds what they'd gain by possibly having larger crowds at outdoor venue.