Phase 2 of Texas A&M’s $450 million Kyle Field makeover will get underway in earnest in the early morning hours of December 21, after a season-long pause to slot in the Aggies’ 2014 home-field gridiron slate. That’s when Christmas will arrive early for demolition junkies, as the stadium’s multitiered west side will come down with a bang.
Some prep work has already begun, but the pace will quicken about two hours after the conclusion of the Aggies’ season finale on Thanksgiving Day against LSU. That’s when the whole stadium will once again become a construction zone, and only those with the proper credentials will be granted entry.
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Heavy machinery will take out the west side’s first deck, but the 2 decks above and the 2-story press box atop them all will be coming down via explosives. Public viewing areas include the Reed Arena lawn and parking lots and Parking Lot 61. Can’t make it to campus for the big Sunday morning blast? It will be web-streamed. (Details on the webcam and the implosion’s exact time are still being ironed out.)
The scale of the project — touted by A&M as “the largest stadium redevelopment in the history of college football” — demanded that the upgrades be phased in over two off-seasons.
Here’s some drone footage of what the construction zone looked like last May:
The rebuilt Kyle Field will be able to accommodate 102,512 fans, making it the largest in Texas and one of the five biggest in America. (Kyle’s current capacity is 82,600.)
51 percent of the $450 million budget will come from seat licenses, 27 percent from a capital campaign, 17 percent from the student body and 5 percent from area taxpayers.
Here’s what the rebuilt northwest corner should end up looking like:
And here’s a plaza to be built outside the west side.
There’s a hard deadline of September 12, 2015, when the Aggies are scheduled to host Ball State in new Kyle Field’s grand opening.
- Redevelopment of Kyle Field [Kylefield.com]
- Implosion of Kyle Field’s west side set for Dec. 21 [Texas A&M]
- Previously on Swamplot: What a Fired Ironworker Left Behind at Kyle Field
Renderings: Kyle Field. Video: Aeroview USA
Demo on the aggy football program actually began October 18th, but in Tuscaloosa.
How many national titles will be awarded to fill the walls of the NEW stadium?
WRTS
I didn’t know Bryan was a part of Houston, talk about sprawl.
You are invited to compare with the modest new stadium at UH, costing a mere $120m (73% less). Tier 1 indeed.
I feel like this was posted just to piss off Shannon :)
Hopefully this ends better than the last structural collapse at A&M….
Lol, actually I’m happy for the Aggies. God knows UT’s program is a disaster. No fan of Strong nor Patterson. If I were betting on near futures in terms of the football program id take A&M. Wow, that was painful, thanks Patterson, you asshole.
@longhornhotspur: When do you think UT be promoted back to D1 football again? I hear that they’re playing .500 in the SWAC (babysteps). I’d love to see a UT primetime game on national tv but I’ve only been able to read about their progress on the back pages of the chron.
For the record, the current capacity of Kyle Field is about 106K. Capacity will be slightly lower next year to 102,500.
82,600 was the capacity before the construction of the new south endzone last offseason.
Better than reading about aggy “progress” on the crime beat
I came to the comments on this just to see who would say it. HeightsGuy beats Shannon by a nose!