Designing and Constructing A Football Stadium: What You Need To Know

Andy Miller, AIA, project architect in the Indianapolis office of Fanning Howey, shares advice for school administrators embarking on a football stadium project.

  • Priorities first. The district’s use of the facility is the highest priority, followed by community usage. “You do want to reach out the community,” says Miller, “but make sure that any or all school activities are accommodated first. You want to maximize the use of the facility, and that starts with school use.”
  • Money. While it’s nice to see money coming in from renting the facility, don’t expect that rentals will fund it. On the other hand, there are funding cycles and costs involved with running the facility, and sometimes sponsorships can help alleviate those costs.
  • Extended use. Today’s sports stadiums have to have multiple uses: football, track, soccer, lacrosse and more. “A lot of times even the parking lots are used by the community for fairs or flea markets, says Miller. “The point is to maximize the use of the facilities — do whatever you can to get people to, in and around the facility to add value.”
  • Scheduling. Someone has to schedule activities and keep an eye on how the facility is being used. Scheduling could become a burden if it’s a small school system, so plan for it.
  • Plan for the future. If you want to provide the maximum that you can afford now, yet expand as money becomes available, you can plan for that during the initial design.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Designing School Spaces for A++ Performance

    In recent years, the educational world has gained greater appreciation for the ways a space’s aesthetics, just like its acoustics, can positively impact educational outcomes. Consequently, engineering, designing, and constructing a school environment demands acoustics to be equally an art and a science, requiring architects and designers to see with their ears, while acousticians must hear with their eyes.

  • S4L Launches 2025 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey

    Spaces4Learning recently launched its 2025 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey, which gathers information on K–12 and higher education construction projects nationwide from the previous year. The data we get from you, our readers, forms an industry report offering an overview of current trends in school facilities.

  • Florida Elementary School to Undergo $47M Reconstruction

    The School District of Osceola County in Kissimmee, Fla., recently announced a partnership with construction firm Skanska to reconstruct Reedy Creek Elementary School, according to a news release. The $47-million project will involve the new construction of a 96,000-square-foot academic center, renovating the remaining facilities, a full-site redevelopment, and demolishing portions of the existing school.

  • Texas District Breaks Ground on New Elementary School

    The Splendora Independent School District (SISD) in Splendora, Texas, recently broke ground on a replacement facility for Greenleaf Elementary School, according to a news release. The district partnered with planning, engineering and program management firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, Inc. (LAN) for the project.

Digital Edition