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Aaron

BREAKING NEWS: IU trustees APPROVE renovating Armstrong Stadium. Finished for 2020 Season

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I knew this was something Glass talked about a while ago but per the HT (I can't post the story since its behind a pay wall but I have the subscription so I read it) Board of Trustees is finally considering renovating Armstrong and is on the agenda at the meeting this week. Basically they will replace the entire north grandstand (the old student side from 1983) with a new 2 story grandstand and facilities underneath (I presume that means the locker room since that is under this grandstand).

I was wondering when this would happen and given soccer is our elite program they really deserve it. I will say though its nice to finally be ready to upgrade a decent facility (Armstrong) rather than awful outdated facilities which is what occurred with football, basketball, volleyball and baseball/softball. It shows our facilities are finally getting much closer to where they should be. 

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Good because when my son was visiting schools, many smaller schools had better facilities. The size of the stadium at IU was hard to beat but the locker rooms below are in dire need of an upgrade.


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7 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

I assume in a sport with partial scholarships facilities can be an even bigger draw for recruiting than in football and basketball. Would you say that's fair Aaron? 

Yes definitely.

Like I said Armstrong is not bad as a facility especially from a fans perspective and the other new side from 2001 with the press box is still in good shape. However, that older side with the locker rooms and bathroom looks 1980's (and that's when it was built with the stadium) and I'm glad to see they are hopefully about to replace it. 

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36 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

Does the soccer team have a players lounge?  I know they have watched the selection show at restaurants before can’t recall if they have their own lounge. 

I'm not sure on that. I assume something like that would be built with this renovation though.

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Approved per IU twitter account. Armstrong is getting renovated!. Not many details beyond what I provided yesterday except that construction starts this summer and finishes summer of 2020 for 2020 season.

Guess that means we will be playing in a working construction zone much like Assembly Hall was a couple years ago. Since the newer side is not getting work where the press box and newer bathrooms are as well as most of the seats they should be able to have games without a problem next year I would think. 

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Finally an article explaining everything in more detail:

https://news.iu.edu/stories/2018/12/iu/inside/07-trustees-approve-armstrong-stadium-project-hine-hall-design.html

'This project will demolish and replace the current north grandstand with a new, approximately 21,000-gross-square-foot facility providing locker rooms, a lobby, a team room, a warmup room, coaches' offices, bicycle support space, universally accessible public restrooms, conference rooms and an event space. Permanent seating in this area will be removed and new temporary seating installed. Temporary bleacher seating also will be installed at the west end of the soccer field to provide spectators with an up-close view of the field.'

Sounds like capacity will shrink a bit which is good since 6,500 is way to big for college soccer. I would like to see 3-4,00 permanent seats which would create regular sellouts and you can bring in temporary bleachers for postseason like Baseball does if needed as well as Little 5. Also sounds like student section will move behind the west goal (near side goal by the main entrance) which is really cool and will allow students to distract the goalie half the game which they do at a lot of college soccer stadiums. This also confirms indeed confirms new locker rooms and facilities for team which are badly needed. Also new restrooms for the public which is awesome as the current ones with the circular sinks in the middle look awful (the newer ones on the side by the press box are fine which reflex the building of them in 2001 vs 1983).  

Overall don't see any downside to this project and glad its finally about to happen and our best sport at IU will get the facilities it deserves. 

I know there has been a lot of complaints about the field itself but my understanding is its just the grass dying early in the year each year and the field surface itself is fine and the players don't mind it. Also re-doing the field is an easy project and would just require planting new grass and could be done relatively cheaply whenever IU sees fit.

Overall its the facilities itself that attract recruits and this project takes care of fixing that. Brown grass on a field from seasonal changes has no impact on anything even though it may look ugly.     

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13 minutes ago, Capt. Crimson said:

For a team that has won 8 national championships.... yawn.

What's missing? Read the description above for whats included. Also adding bleachers on track close to field so people who complain about being far away due to Little 5 track no longer will have that problem. The facilities already decent (although decaying slightly) so this fix should put it back to among the best once they finish this in next year.  

Not sure what else people want. 

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For every person on here who was complaining about the field I was able to confirm at the soccer game tonight that IU is getting a brand new field for next year as part of the renovation.

So we can officially stop talking about how this renovation is inadequate and stop making jokes about how the field is like a goat pasture.

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