Duke Board of Trustees approves launch of three new projects for Wallace Wade

Approval for the removal of the track, lowering of the field and installation of lower-level seats as part of the Wallace Wade Stadium were approved by the Duke Board of Trustees in the spring, but three additional projects that will also transform the home of a quickly-rising Blue Devil football program were only approved by the Board this weekend.

The three projects that will also begin following Duke’s final home game Nov. 29 against Wake Forest include the new tower that will replace the Finch-Yeager Building on the west side of the stadium, new LED video board and speaker system to be implemented in the south end zone and plans for new North and West gates that will feature enhanced concourses.

“The most important word that has gone around our athletic department is transformational,” Deputy Director of Athletics Mike Cragg said. “This period of time and the next two years is going to transform our good to great facilities into really great.”

The tower will be a five-story, 91,000 square foot facility featuring 21 luxury suites, a 300-plus seating dining room and exterior club seating. The President’s box, media facilities and coaches’ booths will also be housed there, and the massive facility’s location will allow it to be utilized for multiple sports.

“It’s going to be spectacular,” Kevin White, vice president and director of athletics, said. “That will begin this winter, probably in January if I had to pick a date.”

Although the project will begin during the next offseason, it is not scheduled to be completed until 2016, meaning that temporary facilities will have to be used next year. But for White and Cragg, the costs of having one year disrupted by construction pale in comparison to the massive benefits that should be gained.

The 6,346 chair-back, blue seats on the east side of the stadium that were installed last offseason should serve as a glimpse into the future for fans as the first landmark achievement for what is shaping up to be a rapid series of major initiatives.

Immediately following the Nov. 29 contest against Wake Forest, the next ones will take place.

“In dramatic fashion, we’ll have bulldozers ready to take out the track,” White said. “I don’t know what the time of that game is, it’s yet to be determined, but it could be in the middle of the night the track will disappear and we will begin to lower the field.”

White and his staff are hoping that the modifications that will increase the stadium’s capacity to almost 40,000 will help attract even more fans and recruits in the cutthroat world of college football. They’re considering every option to satisfy fans, including modifying the stadium’s current concessions venues.

The players currently making history to warrant the massive facilities overhaul will undoubtedly benefit the most from the myriad of projects, and a 55-yard practice field that will match the playing surface of Wallace Wade stadium will offer kickers and quarterbacks the opportunity to practice on the same surface they play on.

But as impressive as the new Wallace Wade Stadium will be, the additions to the rest of the Duke athletic campus that are also scheduled to get underway pending future approvals will make life very different for fans and student-athletes alike.

The overhaul of the weight training facilities in the 16-year old Murray Building will benefit all of the Blue Devils’ sports, especially the 23 non-revenue sports.

A new pavilion that will house a team store and offices for ticketing for every single sport, sports information, compliance and the Iron Dukes is also be expected to be in the works. It will also feature weight training facilities for Duke’s non-revenue sports.

Perhaps most importantly, the pavilion will overlook a plaza that is expected to be the center of a vibrant athletic campus; the plaza will link all of Duke’s athletic facilities and make any amenity for fans more accessible.

“We [would be] the only athletics set of facilities that will be attached by something like that,” White said. “We’ve got a chance to use it in some really unique ways. I have this vision of some great moments in the plaza.”

Combined with the recently constructed practice fields behind Koskinen Stadium, renovations to Koskinen Stadium itself, construction of the new Williams Track and Field Center that is scheduled to be completed in December and new Kennedy Tower press facility that will be used for soccer, lacrosse and track and field and countless other facilities updates, there seems to be no end in sight.

Always trying to stay one step ahead, White and his staff have even started conceptualizing how to expand iconic Cameron Indoor Stadium to keep pace with Duke basketball’s massive market.

“It will be a frontal addition, hopefully seamless,” White said. “We’ll protect the authenticity of the place. We think we’ve got some pretty unique concepts in that regard, with [a big lobby entrance and] a big hospitality space on the second floor.”

But thanks to the generosity of Blue Devil donors as part of the Duke Forward Campaign, the leadership of the university and the Board of Trustees, to say the future looks bright for Blue Devil athletics would be a massive understatement.

“We think that 700,000 plus people come across and to the athletics campus on a yearly basis,” Tom Coffman, senior associate director of athletics and executive director of the Iron Dukes, said. “[These projects] are going to have a dramatic impact on the entire university community for building relationships that are so important to a place like Duke. As a fundraiser, that’s what we do. This goes far beyond athletics, this is a university happening.”