With two-straight nine-win seasons in the books, the next time Duke football takes the field at Wallace Wade Stadium, the Blue Devils and their fans will have some new views to take in before going for a third.
Following Duke’s 41-21 regular-season ending victory against Wake Forest, Duke brought school officials and construction equipment onto the field to ceremoniously mark the beginning of the Wallace Wade renovation process. Head coach David Cutcliffe and former offensive lineman Dave Harding kicked things off for the gathering of fans before turning it over to vice president and director of athletics Kevin White.
“Thank you to all of our fans that have been so great during this run,” Cutcliffe said. “This is pretty spectacular. I’m so happy and proud of so many people that have been a part of this process…. Our entire administration athletically, our entire administration from a University standpoint and then all of these players who have played with us over these last seven years. There’s a big part of them on this field.”
The 85-year old venue is scheduled to undergo a two-year facelift project that will cost approximately $100 million.
The official work is set to start Monday, as the construction company Duke is partnering with for the project, Beck, will begin the extensive remodeling plan. This will begin with the lowering of the field and will include the removal of the track, lowering of the stands, installation of a new scoreboard in the south end zone and replacement of the Finch-Yeager Building—which serves as the Sports Medicine center and press box—with a new, state-of-the-art facility.
The field will be complete by the time the 2015 season kicks off, vice president and director of athletics Kevin White said. The track will be fully removed and the new seats will have replaced it in order to grant fans a closer game experience.
“I’m a big fan of this,” Cutcliffe said. “We’re certainly going to respect what Wallace Wade Stadium is. It will be a new stadium, but it will be recognizable as Wallace Wade Stadium. I think what it will do more than anything else is become more and more fan-friendly.”
The Finch-Yeager Building will come down while students are away for winter break and construction will begin in early January, White said. The new press box and concourse level—which includes a new plaza and gate entrances—will be under construction throughout 2015 but "should be done before the 2016 season," according to the athletic department's official release.
In the meantime, the athletic department will explore several options regarding the placement of media next year. The most likely resolution would be to seat members of the press around the top of the bowl in tented areas.
"[2015] is going to be a temporary solution for a lot of things, including media," senior associate athletics director for external affairs Jon Jackson said. "There's literally three or four different scenarios that could play out—the most aggressive being if they got occupancy for one floor there's potential to do the media in the press area and I've seen other stadiums that have done it. Most likely, outside, under shelter."
In addition to the new building, there will be several other projects underway throughout the 2015 season, meaning the areas surrounding Wallace Wade will be crowded in the coming year.
"In April, the frontal addition for Cameron [Indoor Stadium] and the—I call it the addendum building in the front of Murray [Building]—Scott Pavillion, those things will start to be in construction mode," White said. "We're going to have heavy-duty construction around here for a long time once it's all underway. Then of course we're creating a plaza out there. So when you put all those pieces together, there will be a heck of a lot going on."
Aside from the Wallace Wade renovations, a pair of other projects started earlier this year are nearing completion. White said the new Williams Track is now just two weeks away from occupancy and Kennedy Tower—which will service both Koskinen Stadium and the new track—will be completed by Christmas.
The renovations have more supporters than just White and Cutcliffe, as numerous students and fans joined them on the field following the Blue Devils’ win. Even with the heavy amounts of construction going on throughout East and West Campus, the students on-hand felt it was the best move for the program if it hopes to ride its current wave of success and bring in more fans.
“It feels like it’s not that different because the rest of our campus is going under renovations,” Trinity senior John Davis said. “But besides that, I think it’s a great move forward for our football program. I think the momentum that we have going forward, hopefully the momentum can only go up from here. I think having a bigger and better stadium will keep that momentum going and keep fans coming.”
With a larger stadium comes a demand to fill more seats, including those in the student section. Despite not filling the section on multiple occasions this year, Trinity senior Zeena Bhakta, is confident that the student attendance will only continue to grow, as evidenced through the trend she has seen in her time at Duke,
“The biggest change that I’ve seen is the student section,” Bhakta said. “The student section is much better than it’s been, even our freshman year. Seeing more people get hyped about football is awesome and I hope that trend continues.”
As the construction gets underway, the Blue Devils will spend the next week resting before their bowl bid is announced Sunday, Dec. 7.
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