A New Look on the Way for Jordan-Hare Stadium

Hat tip to aufamily.com

If you go on the road with Auburn you’ve undoubtedly noticed that Jordan-Hare Stadium has fallen behind other facilities in both seating and amenities. Apparently that’s about to change.

Season ticket holders have been receiving a series of surveys from Auburn Athletics asking what’s most important to their game day experience. Sports Business Journal reports that Auburn is ready to spend in the neighborhood of $100 million in the biggest renovation since the addition of the east side upper deck in 1987.

The plan goes way beyond additional seating. Proposals include new sky boxes and scholarship seating in both the north and south end zones. There is also a proposal for a restaurant-like facility in which season ticket holders could buy memberships and where food and drinks are provided as part of the package. This would be available to all season ticket holders regardless of contribution level to Tigers Unlimited.

There are also plans for a new state-of-the-art scoreboard and speaker system, something that’s badly needed. The renovation is not just confined to the inside. In mock-ups, it appears that a new brick façade will surround the exterior of the stadium.

Perhaps the biggest change will be the location of Auburn’s locker room. Reports say it will move from the south end zone to the north end zone. There’s no word on whether this would mean a relocation of the student section to go along with it.

School officials say the amount of extra room on the north side is the reason for the proposed change. This will also enable a better game day recruiting experience for visiting athletes.

There’s no word on how many regular seats will be added. It looks like the priority is on suites and scholarship seats. There are about 1,000 scholarship seat holders who don’t have access to the orange seating and the free food and beverages that come with it. Those wanting to buy access to a suite have more than a decade wait for availability.

Auburn joins Texas A&M and Ole Miss among others in the SEC who are doing major renovations to their stadiums. With the rising costs of tickets and the availability of every conference game on television, schools are having to work hard to keep fans on campus during fall Saturdays.

There’s no timetable on when the work will start. From the recent emails, it seems that Auburn is still in the early stages of planning.

For fans, it can’t come fast enough.