Fans might have gotten used to portable potties and tented concession stands at the University of Akron?s Lee R. Jackson Fields. But that is so yesterday.
Starting with the men?s soccer match at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday against Ohio State, the first of two permanent restrooms and a combined concession/ticket stand open their doors for the first time.
The improvements are the capstone for wide-ranging improvements to the soccer field.
Ted Curtis, UA vice president for capital planning and facilities management, said the university spent $4.75 million in the past 18 months to burnish the home soccer field for the team that won the 2010 NCAA national championship ? the university?s first in any team sport.
That included a new pitch with Wisconsin bluegrass, an advanced lighting system that caters to the needs of national media and television coverage, a 25 percent increase in grandstand seating to 2,000, fencing, irrigation and two formal entry gates.
University officials have their eyes on a still grander improvement: an extension to the top of the grandstand for club seats that would swivel or turn to serve both the soccer field and the baseball diamond to the south, Curtis said.
?There would probably be 70 seats under a roof but open to the weather,? he said. ?We?re providing all the conveniences we can to make spectators comfortable.?
The club seats ? possibly even glass loges ? could be under way in a year or so, he said.
In the meantime the face-lift for soccer is the first major one in the history of Lee R. Jackson Fields.
In the mid 1960s, UA and the city of Akron began carving the 23-acre site along East Exchange Street from a neighborhood of modest homes and stores at a total cost of $4.75 million.
The city used federal urban renewal funds to buy 183 parcels of land and relocate 143 families. UA turned the land into recreational facilities that were dedicated in September 1968.
Firestone Tire and Rubber gave $250,000 to name the site for Jackson, a former UA football star and board chairman who retired as chairman of the company.
Today, the fields are home to a potpourri of sports: softball, baseball, men?s and women?s track and field, soccer, intramurals and a football practice area.
But it is the men?s soccer program that is drawing the most fans.
With the team?s success, attendance hit a record 41,770 last year. That is an average attendance of 3,213 a game, the second highest in the NCAA, trailing only the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The turnout has given the university the chance to carve out part of the recreational complex for more naming rights, used often on campuses nationwide that are hungry for cash.
FirstEnergy gave $500,000 for the naming rights to the soccer stadium and MTD Products gave $395,000 for the right to name the field for its Cub Cadet line of outdoor power equipment.
Along the way, the soccer project has drawn some acclaim as the fourth of the 12 ?most exciting places to watch a college soccer match,? according to College Soccer News in Tallahassee, Fla.
But the improvements to the soccer stadium are more than exciting, they?re also practical.
The restrooms and the combined concession/ticket stand are situated so they?re accessible to fans in other sports at Jackson Field as well.
The only piece of the project still undone after this week should be a second set of men?s and women?s restrooms, which should be completed by November, Curtis said.
Carol Biliczky can be reached at cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3729.
Source: http://education.ohio.com/2011/09/upgrades-to-ua-soccer-stadium-get-final-touches/
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