The good news about the planned expansion of Notre Dame Stadium is that 20,000 more seats will be available.
The bad news is, they won't be available for two years, and therel won't be enough even then.
At a press conference in July, 1995, Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., Notre Dame executive vice president, announced details of the $50 million project, which is scheduled to be finished by the start of the 1997 season. The expansion will add 21,915 seats to the 65-year-old facility, increasing capacity from 59,075 (44th largest among Division I-A stadiums) to 80,990 (14th).
The expansion was spurred by a demand from alumni, and Beauchamp promised that the bulk of the new seats will be made available to alumni.
"We expect every game to continue to be sold out," he said. "Right now less than half the ticket requests are met for every game, and for some games it's only 10 to 15 percent, but we expect that to change."
In other words, alumni will still have to rely on their luck in ticket lotteries, but at least the odds will improve.
Beauchamp said the University opted against expanding to a mega-stadium of 100,000 or more seats because it feared such a structure would dominate the campus and spoil the special feel of a Notre Dame home football game.
In fact, the refurbished Notre Dame Stadium, designed by Ellerbe Becket of Kansas City, won't look all that different from the original. The new seats, bench-style, will be arranged in 26 rows added to the top of the bowl. Support will come from a new brick outer wall erected around the present brick exterior, which will create a ground-level concourse.
The rickety folding chairs in select lower rows will be replaced with theater-style seats 10 rows deep on both sides of the field.
Other features of the renovation:
* A new, better-draining natural grass field and new goal posts will be installed after the 1996 season. Instead of lowering the field to improve sight lines from ground-level seats, the lowest three rows will be eliminated. New electronic scoreboards will be installed at each end zone.
* The area immediately surrounding the stadium will be landscaped to create a park-like environment.
* The home and visiting team locker rooms will more than double in size, as will the press box.
* There will be 28 more concession stands, and the restroom shortage will ease. For instance, women now must rely one toilet for every 262 fans. After the renovation there will be one women's toilet per 100 fans.
* Parking, however, will continue to be a challenge. The widening of the stadium 60 to 80 feet in every direction, coupled with the creation of the park-like buffer, will cost parking spaces. And the addition of 20,000 fans will boost demand. Beauchamp said an estimated 7,000 new spaces will be needed. These are likely to be located in a lot north of campus near the intersection of Juniper and Pendle roads. Shuttle-bus service will be supplied.
Construction was scheduled to begin following this season's final home game, Nov. 4, 1995. Work will be suspended during next season -- "It's not going to look nice, Beauchamp admitted -- and be completed before the first home game in 1997. Miami of Ohio was scheduled as the inaugural opponent in the finished stadium, but that was changed to Georgia Tech.
Officials expect the extra revenue generated by higher attendance tol more than pay for the 30-year, tax-exempt, fixed-interest bonds issued last November to finance the project. The projected $47 million surplus of income will be used to support academic and student life activities.