This artist rendering shows the south end-zone area of Lambeau Field with approximately 6,600 new seats added.

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Armed with a healthy financial portfolio and sky-high fan interest in the defending Super Bowl champions, the Green Bay Packers said Thursday they would move ahead with plans to add approximately 6,600 seats in a revamped south end zone at Lambeau Field and add a gate and rooftop viewing platform in the north end zone.

And for those who have always wanted to be an owner of a professional football team, the Packers say they may hold another stock sale, the fifth in the history of the franchise. As always, the stock is worthless, but it gives any fan bragging rights.

The entire project will cost an estimated $143 million.

Two new video boards and the work on the north end zone should be done in time for the 2012 season. The entire project should be ready for the beginning of the 2013 football season, team officials said Thursday at a news conference at Lambeau Field.

Better yet, Mark Murphy, the Packers' president and CEO, and Jason Wied, vice president of administration, said the team would not ask for public tax money to pay for it. That is a departure from 2003, when Brown County residents agreed to pay a 0.5% sales tax as part of the financing for the $295.2 million Lambeau makeover.

The franchise, however, may borrow somewhat from the financing playbook it employed in 2003. For instance, the team plans to ask the National Football League for permission to tap into a new stadium fund, the team may impose a one-time user fee on season-ticket holders, and the franchise may consider the stock sale.

In addition, the franchise will borrow money from local banks, Murphy said.

The new NFL stadium fund, created as part of the new collective bargaining agreement with players, provides for 1.5% of the league revenues to be put into the fund. For every private dollar a team puts into construction, the league will match 50% of it.

Murphy also said he will be setting up meetings with NFL officials to go over the details of a possible stock sale. Some NFL owners might question the stock sale because the Packers are the only publicly owned franchise in the league, and the proceeds from a sale could be seen as giving the franchise an unfair financial advantage.

"Hopefully there won't be any roadblocks," Murphy said.

In 2003, the Packers implemented the user fee to help pay for renovation. At the time, the user fee was either $1,400 per seat or $600 per seat, depending on the ticket package. No price has been set for a new user fee, Murphy said.

Murphy said the new stadium project is an investment in the future and will generate in-stadium revenue, which is a crucial component to the success of an NFL franchise.

"This is the second-biggest project we've ever done at Lambeau Field in terms of size, scope and investment," Wied added.

The addition of the seats in the south end-zone area will be outdoors and will be tiered vertically in four levels above the stadium bowl.

"We didn't want the design to hurt the integrity of the earlier expansion," Wied said.

Once completed, the new seats - with backs and armrests - will bring capacity at Lambeau to well over 79,000, making it one of the largest stadiums in the NFL, Wied said.

The new video boards, at a cost of approximately $12 million, will be funded jointly by the Packers and the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Football Stadium District's capital improvement fund.

Wied said current season-ticket holders will be given an opportunity to move some or all of their seats to the new south end zone. Ticket holders with the most seniority will be given priority.

Then an undetermined number of those on the waiting list - at last count somewhere in the neighborhood of 88,000 people - will have a chance.

Wied said he wasn't sure who would be eligible. In the 2003 project, fans who had been waiting for decades were able to get a season-ticket package.

Ticket prices for the new seats have not been set, but team officials say the range would be between $87 and $313.

With the user fee, current season-ticket holders who move to the south end zone will only have to pay the difference in the user fee from what they paid before.

Groundbreaking has been scheduled for Sept. 1. The work this season will largely be on the foundation, Murphy said. Much of the heavy construction will be done in the off-season.

The project is expected to provide jobs for more than 1,600 workers with a combined payroll of $70 million.