State plans $20 million for Carrier Dome renovations

[Cuse4455]

The UNC move from bleacher benches to individual seats is famous because it was such a disaster.

I have in many venues (all ACC football) and Kenan Stadium was the absolute worse for leg room.

If you have a stadium that was designed for backless benches (like the 300 of the dome) you can’t install individual seats with full backs without destroying leg room.

Kenan is an awful place to watch a game because of this. Now I watched a game from the upper level where there was a lot less leg room than their lower level. Maybe you sat in the lower level. Or have shorter legs than I do.

But other fans love to make fun of UNC because of the lack of leg room in many of the seats there.

Hope SU does not make the same mistake. I am sure Nate got the timing wrong. No way this happens until after football and basketball for next year are done. They have sold tickets for both already.

I was lower level, right on the 50. I got lucky lol!

 

[sutomcat]

I was lower level, right on the 50. I got lucky lol!

It is a nice site. Very scenic. Just a nightmare to watch a game in.

 

[two3zone]

I wonder who gets all the scrap metal?

Judah Mintz

 

[OttoMets]

Some stadiums alternate colors from section to section. I wonder if they alternate orange and blue.

I like the old Superdome look of various colors scattered throughout, makes empty sections look a lot better.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Hope SU does not make the same mistake. I am sure Nate got the timing wrong. No way this happens until after football and basketball for next year are done. They have sold tickets for both already.

how would they install seats in the 300s then, without sacrificing leg room? I don’t understand how we’re losing legroom though - instead of kicking a persons back now we’re kicking their seat instead.

 

[OptimusOtto]

I was at a city council meeting a few years back and Pete Sala did a presentation that included plans for reduced seating. He mentioned the new capacity would be reduced by about 6- thousand, which would make the new capacity about 44k.

Print the t-shirts now, “me and 44,444 of my friends”

 

[sufandu]

How in the world would they not choose Orange?!

I can see choosing blue to hide wear and tear more. They could include a nice orange block 'S'.

 

[llandz]

I wonder who gets all the scrap metal?

The bigger question might be what will said person pay for said scrap metal?

 

[Cheriehoop]

The bigger question might be what will said person pay for said scrap metal?

They said the benches would be donated to local schools etc. Not enough local schools probably to use all of them though.

 

[rocklloyd]

As we are talking about it, I can’t begin figure out how they get chairs with seat backs in the 300’s. There’s barely room for my knees with the bench seating.

 

[Cuse12]

The bigger question might be what will said person pay for said scrap metal?

Scrap index has increased through the roof lately! Probably a decent penny, but he will sell it to the foundries for a decent dollar!

 

[sutomcat]

As we are talking about it, I can’t begin figure out how they get chairs with seat backs in the 300’s. There’s barely room for my knees with the bench seating.

The new seats will probably look similar to the picture posted. Very low, abbreviated back to the seats.

I would be happy if they just outfitted the whole 300 level with the padded seats season ticket holders can order with their season tickets. They have a low profile, they are pliable so legs can squeeze through and while they make walking past people already seated harder, they are not awful to deal with.

And they are considerably more comfortable than the benches. Best of all, they are the same size as the normal seats on the benches so if we did this, we wouldn't have to all get our seats changed.

New seating could be installed this summer if the new seats have the same width as the bench seats. We haven't considered at as a possibility, because we all know the dome is already uncomfortable and seat widths engineers for 1980 butts aren't going to cut it in 2022.

But if you sit in that awful abomination in State College, or the Big House (last I knew anyway) or lots of other big stadia, the seat widths are really narrow. This is to find a way to get 100,000 seats in a stadium that should hold 80000. There are still lots of stadia with narrow width seats. Could we be considering keeping the width the same? All the talk up to this point has been to increase the width.

Could all the headaches reassigning everyone's seat and trying to figure it all out have driven a chance in plan? Doubt it but you never know. Nate seemed confident in the timeline he mentioned in his article.

 

[Orangezoo]

The new seats will probably look similar to the picture posted. Very low, abbreviated back to the seats.

I would be happy if they just outfitted the whole 300 level with the padded seats season ticket holders can order with their season tickets. They have a low profile, they are pliable so legs can squeeze through and while they make walking past people already seated harder, they are not awful to deal with.

And they are considerably more comfortable than the benches. Best of all, they are the same size as the normal seats on the benches so if we did this, we wouldn't have to all get our seats changed.

New seating could be installed this summer if the new seats have the same width as the bench seats. We haven't considered at as a possibility, because we all know the dome is already uncomfortable and seat widths engineers for 1980 butts aren't going to cut it in 2022.

But if you sit in that awful abomination in State College, or the Big House (last I knew anyway) or lots of other big stadia, the seat widths are really narrow. This is to find a way to get 100,000 seats in a stadium that should hold 80000. There are still lots of stadia with narrow width seats. Could we be considering keeping the width the same? All the talk up to this point has been to increase the width.

Could all the headaches reassigning everyone's seat and trying to figure it all out have driven a chance in plan? Doubt it but you never know. Nate seemed confident in the timeline he mentioned in his article.

Yeah i like your idea.

Gotta say if it is those abbreviated seats only that would be a disappointment. Almost just prefer benches to stay if that is gonna be the case. They are benches with a bump and won't change much outside some having to sit on a bump squeezed in vs on a bench.

 

[Jake]

I say let’s go 25,000 Dunk n Bright Recliners and call it a day.

 

[Cheriehoop]

I say let’s go 25,000 Dunk n Bright Recliners and call it a day.

 

[FrancoPizza]

I think lost in the shuffle is the fact that the east end concourses should get a long-awaited blowout to connect with the Barnes Center.

 

[rychi32]

Print the t-shirts now, “me and 44,444 of my friends”

That would be 44,445 people.

 

[721Comstock]

That would be 44,445 people.

Which would totally be the SUAD thing to do.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

On the football site Nate Mint says the University could start in June. That suggests no lost seats. I find that strange.

Seating is a license. SU can change it

 

[upperdeck]

i would think they could change over the non bball end of the dome especially the upper deck without a huge fuss. How many of those rows are sold at 100% as it is.. if they did the last move anticipating this they may have not sold rows at 100% if they could help it..

 

[DoctorBombay]

How in the world would they not choose Orange?!

I say, go back to basics:

"Syracuse went Orange in 1890, becoming the first university to adopt only one official color. In the years prior, the school colors were a light pink and pea green, then light pink and blue. After a winning athletics meet with Hamilton College, Syracuse students wanted colors as bold as they were".

 

[sutomcat]

It is a nice site. Very scenic. Just a nightmare to watch a game in.

I found a picture. You can see the problem with legroom here.

 

[upperdeck]

we complain about the dome.. but there are arenas around here with far tighter conditions and smaller seats

 

[FrancoPizza]

I found a picture. You can see the problem with legroom here.

It seems like the difference amounts to 2” less legroom, e.g. the thickness of a seat back. A plastic barrier that our legs and feet will bump, but isn’t that better instead of being kicked in the back? I agree that it will feel a bit more restrictive but it may mostly be a perceived problem than an actual physical impediment. If you are one of the super tall people, well I can’t feel too sorry for you yet. You had all the advantages in high school sports. It’s time shorter people got some perks.

In all seriousness I think the biggest inconvenience may be for those who like to jump rows to beat the crowds to the exits. You know who you are.

 

[sutomcat]

It seems like the difference amounts to 2” less legroom, e.g. the thickness of a seat back. A plastic barrier that our legs and feet will bump, but isn’t that better instead of being kicked in the back? I agree that it will feel a bit more restrictive but it may mostly be a perceived problem than an actual physical impediment. If you are one of the super tall people, well I can’t feel too sorry for you yet. You had all the advantages in high school sports. It’s time shorter people got some perks.

In all seriousness I think the biggest inconvenience may be for those who like to jump rows to beat the crowds to the exits. You know who you are.

Based on your assessment of the situation, you have either never sat in the 300 level, or are a midget. I am 6’0 and leg room today is extremely tight with nothing constraining things except the backs of people sitting in front of you. If there are people sitting in front of you.

Unless you happen to have someone with the rental seats in front of you.

I have both situations with my season tickets. For football, no rental seats in place directly in front of my tickets. For basketball, there are rentals in front of me.

As noted, leg room is always a problem in the 300 level for people my height. It is way worse for people like Mark that are 6’4.

With the rentals, when I am sitting down and there are people in the seats in front of me, my knees are regularly jammed into the flexible padded seat back of the rental seats. They have a really abbreviated seat back. Nothing like the ones I have shown used at Kenan Stadium. But the entire seat is loosely locked in place and people normally react when they feel a knee in their back and move their seat up, away from that person, to avoid that uncomfortable contact. And the rental seats are much less deep than normal full sized seats like Kenan has. The rentals are barely tolerably. The Kenan seats are an abomination.

Even if you were right and we were only losing 2 inches (you certainly are not), it would be a huge deal given things are already really tight. The Kenan seats are especially awful because they are deep and the seat back is high. Both aggregate the leg room problem and when combined, you a nightmare for people above 5’8 in height.

With the rental seats, you can push them an inch or two forward and get some extra room if no one is sitting in front of you. If you are walking down the row to your seat, it is relatively easy to move them a bit as you make your way to your seat because they can be moved, and their low profile greatly reduces the intrusion in your space. Permanently installed full size seats with high profile seat backs, which always slope backwards, will make a bad situation awful.

It is great to address the seat width issue. I think all the seats are 18 inches wide now and I think we can all agree that is too narrow for most 2022 CNY bodies. What I am saying it if by solving that problem, you introduce a worse problem with leg room, you have not improved things for the fans at all. You might well make things worse. I hope we are careful not to solve one problem and create a worse one here. Like UNC did.