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UO to replace Hayward Field with bigly 30k seat stadium for IAAF

A teardown seems a bit extreme. I wonder what sort of city approval this will require. Ken Goe has the report in the Oregonian:

An IAAF team has been in Portland and Eugene this week to discuss preparations for the 2021 World Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

The championships are more than three years away. But there are unresolved issues, such as repeated delays to required renovations of Hayward Field, and a reported FBI investigation into how the championships were awarded. …

The IAAF minimum capacity for a stadium hosting the world championships is 30,000.

Original plans called for an extensive renovation to begin immediately after the 2016 U.S. Olympic trials. It was expected to take two years with a pause late in the spring of 2017 to allow Hayward to stage the Prefontaine Classic, the Oregon state high school championships and the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

But the work has been delayed several times and has not yet begun. Sources say the original plan, which preserved the iconic east side of the stadium, has been scrapped.

The stadium project now is expected to be a complete teardown and rebuild under the direction of Howard Slusher, a longtime adviser to Nike co-founder Phil Knight. Knight is said to be a large contributor to the project. Slusher has supervised other building projects for Knight and Nike.

Paul Weinhold, president and CEO of the University of Oregon Foundation, said Wednesday he expects the project to begin this summer, and for the plans to become public early this spring.

“We’re doing it, and it’s going to be ready,” Weinhold said. …

4 Comments

  1. Anas clypeata 01/17/2018

    I can see it now. Historic preservationists, track nerds, and good ol’ Eugene troublemakers, all chaining themselves to the railings at Historic Hayward Field. Oh, wait, there are no railings! The place is an endless series of code violations disguised as a firetrap disguised as a really great place to watch a track meet on a late spring afternoon.

    • uomatters Post author | 01/17/2018

      Surely you’re not suggesting that Mr. Slusher and the UO Foundation reach out to those young pyros who dealt so expeditiously with Civic Stadium’s fire code issues?

  2. The heaviest straw 01/19/2018

    If the university tears down the East grandstand they will never receive another dime from me for anything. That is a bridge far too far. I hope track fans and historians will move to prevent turning over the most hallowed non-academic ground on campus to a bunch of Nike hacks whose design aesthetic yielded the grotesque Hatfield-Dowlin complex. I am not opposed to renovating and updating, but a tear down and rebuild will kill the soul of the place and therefore a significant part of the soul of this university. If Anas doesn’t like that they can go watch track and field at Texas A&M or some place.

  3. UO Community Member 03/28/2018

    Juicy scoop from the Oregonian:

    -The project has been taken over by SRG Partnership

    -The new plan shown at the Portland meeting was a two-deck horseshoe style stadium, bearing no resemblance to either side of the current stadium.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2018/03/hayward_field_renovation_plan.html

    And the Register Guard:

    -As with other projects financed by Knight, Oregon plans to lease the property to a private LLC for the purposes of construction.

    http://registerguard.com/rg/sports/36583495-81/hayward-field-project-clash-of-past-and-future.html.csp

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