Nebraska Board of Regents votes on concepts for renovating Memorial Stadium

LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) - More than 21,000 Husker fans stopped cheering long enough to fill out surveys, revealing what they want Memorial Stadium to look like.

“They know they want a stadium of the future,” said University of Nebraska President Ted Carter. “I mean, as iconic and great as Memorial Stadium is, there’s a lot of upgrades. They’re just simple things like widening the seats, putting the backs on the seats, access points to concessions, even moving the student body section where it’s more relevant for our students.”

Carter says there will be a lot of things the university has to do in the renovation process, and some other things that would be nice to have -- they just have to find a balance. And the idea of beer in the stadium hasn’t gone flat.

“It’s still under review,” Carter said. “I don’t want to make a prediction here. I would say whatever we do will be thoughtful, methodical and not a rush.”

The Board of Regents voted to approve HDR to look over the stadium to determine what improvements need to be made and come up with a plan to renovate the century-old stadium.

“At some point, after that plan is finished, we will come back to the Board of Regents with a more formal what we call ‘program statement’ to define the project, the scope of the project, the budget for the project and the financing for the project,” said Chris Kabourek, UNL’s chief financial officer.

How much gets done will heavily depend on how much money supporters of the football program want to donate.

“We really need to understand what the appetite is for the philanthropic community, who we’re going to need to have support for this project,” he said.

Carter says the plan is to complete the stadium renovations without taxpayer dollars. Memorial Stadium was built in 1923 and celebrates 100 years this year.

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