University of Alabama updates
 

I decided that there is enough U of A traffic to warrant a separate thread for all the P and C. Though, I'm sure there will be much more now that it has it's own "forum".

McCorvey Drive

The closing of McCorvey drive was in fact for some re tarring and re striping that makes the road make a bit more sense.

Bryant Denny Stadium

The expansion appears to be on schedule. The new audio system seems to have a few bugs, ie: not being able to handle some bass sounds. I'm sure that will be fixed though.

New flag poles were placed near the ramps on the NE and NW sides of the stadium.

Concrete foundation for the South "Zone" is finished.

And, the new field design looks pretty bad ass. I personally love it. Though, it's a bit weird to march on...

Foster Auditorium

The section of the Burke parking lot that was blocked off is now being torn up for who knows what. Not sure what they're doing it for, maybe to extend the building southward, or maybe just for some better landscaping.

Ridgecrest South

The dorm is finished, but there appears to be some kinda activity going on, on the western side of the building, across the street. Not sure what it's gonna be, but there have been whispers of a "nature walk" type deal that follows the creek that is fed by Marrs Spring.

Yeah, I don't like the new endzones... but i'm in the minority on that one. I thought the old way was a bit less generic. I did like the way they cut the grass at the '08 A-Day.

The new speaker system sounded much better than last year as well. I did hear a few times where they tried to play some particularly loud bit of music and it would crackle a fair bit, though. Still, biiiiig improvement on that. Not a fan of how the stadium folks kept playing music while the band was playing, though. It just seemed a bit disrespectful and it wasn't like the stadium folks' music selection was that good.... and can we PLEASE get the stadium folks to stop playing Dixieland Delight? That song is explicitly about a whole other state.

When I was in Burke (fr. year '98) they were talking about tearing up that parking lot. I'm surprised it's taken them this long to do so. They'll have to be careful w/ Foster (or at least the front facade) b/c of its historic nature, but it's really good that they're doing something with it.

I vaguely recall something in the article announcing Ridgecrest a few months back that said something about Marrs Spring. That's an interesting historic feature of the campus that is almost completely unnoticed by the student body. Very cool backstories to it. Some kinda' creepy. :)

Curious if you've heard anything about the new condo/hotel thing they were putting up across WW next to the stadium?

As for the music while we've been playing stand tunes... that's all the marketing people... they just go out and play whatever the very well please. Needless to say, the student section was uber pissed at us when we didn't play Basketcase at the beginning of the 4th quarter. I remember us having to deal with all that crap my Freshman year (2007), the students weren't happy.

See, we have a GTA standing next to whichever drum major is directing at the time, and the GTA talks to the marketing/media people about which songs to play and such. Fortunately, the Crimson White made note in Monday's paper that it was the marketing/media people who forced us, the band, to not play Basketcase at the very beginning of the 4th.

IMO, it should ONLY be the band playing during the games, considering that's what we're there for.

As far as the front facade of Foster, I'm sure they don't plan to do anything to it. There's not reason, it appears to be pretty structurally safe. I'm hoping they'll do something to kind of commemorate what happened.

I agree, I loved how they cut the grass for the 08 Aday, that was pretty freakin awesome. I think they decided not to continue with it because it might've been too difficult to cut week after week.

Oh, and I'm not sure what's going on with that development across Wallace Wade from the stadium. As far as I know, it's still goin on, just a lot more slowly cause the economy.

I'll try and take drive around that area sometime soon to see if I can see anything.

When will Denny Stadium expansion be complete?

The 2010 Football season

The Board of Trustees, yesterday, approved the designs for the Foster expansion. The demolition on the rear of the building where it hits the Burke Parking lot is where they will expand by 11,000 square feet. It is expected to mirror the front of Foster that faces Farrah Hall.

At the moment, it appears that they're preparing for the removal of all the asbestos. There are lots of plastic bubble structures around the building.

Today, the trustees are expected to vote on approval of the renderings of the building.

The paper said Shelby 3's design was approved and it could open in 2011 or maybe 2012.

I also recall seeing something a while back about plans to change around some of the dining options on campus, including adding a Chick-Fil-A in the old chemistry building by the quad.

I don't even go to the games, but I agree that song is putrid.

Yea, there is also supposed to be a Pizza Hut in Lloyd along with Chick Fil A, I'm praying that, that will take some pressure off of the Ferg. Fresh Food is getting too crowded to even bother with...

No one likes that song... I'm in the band, I and I don't even know what possesses them to play it.

Great, I look forward to seeing the expanded stadium in person.

Here's a link to the video for Alabama's new campaign. This 'replaces' the old "Crimson is..." campaign. It's a pretty cool video, IMO.

Touching Lives

I go to LSU and that is probably the best promotional video I have ever seen for a University. I'm jealous because LSU has yet to produce a decent promotional campaign.

So, some statistics that were in the Crimson White today:

Total Enrollment: 28,807 (up 47% since 2002 when it was 20,333)
Freshman Enrolled: 5,207
National Achievement Scholars: 25 (in current Frosh class)
National Merit Scholars: 102 (in current Frosh class, ranks 11th among public universities)
Freshmen with 4.0 GPA HS GPA: 1,173
Non-white population: 18.5%

BTW, here are some pictures of the Dynasty Park renderings. I took these with my phone from the Crimson White newspaper.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2534/...5d39a21c_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2463/...798618c9_o.jpg

I saw the equipment bus getting ready to head to Lexington earlier. It has a cool new design on the side.

Here's what I think the University should do with the creek fed by Marr's Spring:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ngineering.JPG
Wikipedia

Part of the engineering campus at the University of Illinois.

I hope that university officials pay attention to this thread ;)

Any pics of stadium construction? I try to catch glimpses during TV coverage. Did they remove the top few rows of seats on that end during the construction like they did with the other end zone?

There's now a webcam that is watching the Bryant Denny expansion 24/7. You can go anytime and check out the progress.

Webcam site

I don't believe they've removed any seats yet. I may be wrong about that, but we sit in the south end zone and, except for the scoreboard, SEC flags and fencing, I didn't see much different. Most of the construction is going on outside. And they've closed those gates.

I may be wrong...since I sit IN the section I don't look at it that much!

I'm still interested to know when they're going to start the process of assigning land for the new sorority houses. From what little I've heard, after promising the parking lot behind Kappa Delta/Chi Omega/Pi Beta Phi/Alpha Kappa Alpha for four new sorority houses, the university has now reduced that number to 3, and is stalling on continuing with the process.

I think the capacity in the greek section has been reduce, but not by much at all. By raising up that section a few feet and making the slope down more shallow, I'm sure they've lost 10 or so seats, but that's splitting hairs :)

They're doing most of the foundational work during the season so that they won't disrupt any gameday operations. They'll wait till after the season to do the work that will probably take up some space in the greek section.