Stadium Central

Two of the larger college football stadiums will be expanding in the next few years. Darrell K. Royal Stadium at the University of Texas is currently undergoing an expansion that will bring its capacity to around 90,000. Concerns are being raised as shown in this piece from television station KVUE, however, as to whether the 18,000 seat addition planned to be ready for the start of the 2007 season will be completed. Poor weather in Austin has hampered efforts to complete the addition to the North End Zone.

In Michigan, regents of the University of Michigan have approved a renovation of the football stadium that will include 83 suites and 3200 club seats. The renovations are scheduled to be completed in 2010 and will increase the seating capacity to more than 108,000.

Just when it appeared that the San Francisco 49ers had settled on a site in Santa Clara for their future stadium, concerns are now being raised by the owner of the site, the parent company for the Great America theme park. A recent article on the InsideBayArea.com website indicates that Cedar Fair, the company that recently purchased Great America and which previously had expressed support for the stadium plan, now has concerns about the impacts of traffic on the theme park and of construction on attendance at park. Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, is trying to capitalize on the news to push for relocation to a proposed site in at Hunters Point on the San Francisco Bay. The concerns don't appear to be deal killers for the Santa Clara site, but they go to show how things can change so quickly when trying to locate a new stadium in a well-developed region.