A Comprehensive Review of USC's Coliseum Renovation Proposal

*Before I begin this review, it should be noted that my comments are in regards to the renderings and plans released by USC on October 29th. Architectural drawings have likely progressed or changed since this date.*

On October 29th, USC unveiled their proposal for a comprehensive renovation of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. With an estimated cost of $270 million and a scheduled completion in 2019, USC’s plan would begin a modernization process for the stadium that first opened in 1923. The renovated Coliseum would place a new suite/club tower on the south side of the Coliseum, restore the historic peristyle, replace all seats, add new aisles, and build 2 new video boards in the east corners. In this post, I’ll take a look at the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unanswered aspects of the planned renovation.

THE GOOD

-The peristyle would be restored to more closely resemble its original design. The peristyle is the most prominent visual feature of the Coliseum, but in recent years it has been disregarded for financial purposes. The renovation will remove the Audi suites, the 2 scoreboards, the Coors Light billboard/clock, and all the other ugly additions that have brought in revenue for the athletic department.

-New seats for all and increased leg room in some sections. Many of the Coliseum’s current seats are faded, cracked, or broken, so any renovation would involve replacing every seat. However, adding leg room (many rows are pretty cramped) will be a welcome addition for taller guests.

-Improved wi-fi throughout the stadium. This is a bit of an inside joke, because the Coliseum doesn’t currently have wi-fi for people outside of the press box. Personally, I’m not someone who thinks that internet access is a must-have feature for stadiums, because people should be paying attention to the game. But I’ll get off my old man soapbox and admit that this will be a welcome feature for many people. I often try to check scores and stats on my phone at halftime, but cell service is typically slow to nonexistent. Making the entire stadium wi-fi compatible will be a major undertaking, due to the stadium’s large capacity and giant footprint.

-The suite/club tower (if you’re someone who can afford to sit there). I’ll have a lot more to say about this later, but if you’re someone who can afford to buy a founder’s suite, club seat, or loge box, then you’ll probably enjoy this space very much. I’m sure that the finishes and amenities will be top-notch.

Fun fact: the architects accidentally used a flipped image for this rendering. You can tell, because it is missing the tunnel on the right side.

-The new concourse for seats on the south side of the stadium. This space will contain new bathrooms and concession stands for fans sitting in the lower bowl in sections 4-10. I also imagine that USC will build a club space for Trojan Athletic Fund donors, replacing the current Coliseum Clubs.

-The 2 new video boards in the east corners. While these are somewhat unnecessary due to the giant video board in the west endzone, these will serve to take out some bad seats and put some fans closer to replays. The old boards on top of the peristyle were becoming almost unusable because of their low resolution.

THE BAD

-Lowering the capacity to approximately 77,500. I’m guessing that most USC fans knew that the capacity would be lowered from its current 93,000. USC football games reach capacity too infrequently to justify having such a large stadium. In addition, with an NFL team(s) likely coming to Los Angeles in the near future, it makes sense that both USC and UCLA will lose some of their crowd to pro football on Sundays. However, putting capacity below 80,000 isn’t fitting for a football program as successful as USC’s. Since 2003 (USC’s return to prominence under Pete Carroll), USC has averaged over 77,500 for 9 out of the 13 years (final attendance numbers aren’t out for ‘15, but I’m assuming this season was below the mark). Attendance averaged 87,945 as recently as 2012. USC’s attendance figures have swung depending on the football team’s success; this holds true for pretty much any other team in the LA area. USC’s proposal seems to assume that the football team won’t be very successful in the long term. A capacity between 82-85,000 would seem more appropriate.

-New aisles with handrails throughout the seating bowl. On its face, this is a good idea. Seating sections at the Coliseum are too wide (about 30 seats per row), meaning that people who sit in the middle of the section must walk past 10-15 people to get to their seat, go to the bathroom, get food, etc. The problem is that the Coliseum’s tunnels make it painfully slow for people to get to the concourse at halftime or after the game. It can take 20-25 minutes for fans in the lower bowl to get out of the stadium at the end of a close game. Simply adding aisles won’t improve this problem. The Coliseum really needs wider tunnels (I’ve read that there are structural elements that make this difficult) or additional tunnels for the lower bowl to improve ingress/egress.

-The $270 million price tag. I debated putting this in “The Good,” but decided against it. The overall cost is very reasonable and shouldn’t hamstring the athletic department for years to come. In other words, USC didn’t bite off more than they can chew. The bad part about the price is the way the money is being spent and how far that money goes. I’ve read that approx. $200 million is going towards the suite/club tower and approx. $70 million is going towards the renovations to the rest of the bowl. While I understand that the new premium areas will generate the most revenue, the rest of the bowl is approaching 100 years old and needs a lot of work. Also, while USC claims that the $270 million price tag will put them in the top-5 nationally for renovations, other programs seemed to complete more ambitious projects for lower costs. Baylor spent $266 million for an entirely new stadium and Washington spent $280 million to complete a near-rebuild of Husky Stadium. I understand that construction costs are expensive in California, but it doesn’t seem like USC is getting a great bang for their buck on this renovation.

THE UGLY

-The new suite/club tower lacks taste, doesn’t blend into the current bowl, and may block views of the field. Sorry for the harsh criticism, but I didn’t want to mince words on this one. I wrote earlier that the peristyle is the most prominent visual feature of the Coliseum, but if the renovation goes forward as proposed, that will no longer be true. As designed, the new tower would stick out of the seating bowl like a sore thumb. The Oakland Coliseum built a tower of suites and club seats that is known derisively as Mount Davis; USC fans have already started referring to the proposed tower as Mount Haden.

USC needs new suites, club seats, and loge boxes to help financially support the athletic department going forward. I understand this and I think most USC fans understand this. However, it appears that USC’s goal for the new premium spaces was to create the best sightlines possible for the wealthy donors, even if it hurts the sightlines for the average fan. While I understand that the University wants to create the best possible premium spaces, I find it hard to believe that the average person that will sit in these seats cares much about “amazing sightlines.” Many other schools (Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and the Rose Bowl) have created similar areas in similarly sized stadiums, but have put them in the back of the seating bowl.

The renderings make it unclear if seats directly next to the tower will be able to see the entire field (I can only hope that the architects will clear this up, since it is basic stadium design). Even if the sightlines aren’t an issue, the new tower would make the Coliseum look lopsided and unbalanced. It would take a similarly sized tower on the north side to make the stadium look “correct,” but that would make the Coliseum’s seating bowl look more like the Staples Center. There are ways to seamlessly blend suites and clubs into a single-tier seating bowl (see Stadion Wroclaw in Poland or the new Maracana Stadium in Brazil), but USC and the architects chose not to pursue this path.

This is an overhead view to show spatially how the renovations would fit.

-By reducing the capacity and keeping the sun deck, the average seat will actually be further away from the field. The Coliseum was designed as a track stadium (with particularly long straightaways), which creates problems for fitting a football field with good sightlines. I’ve written before about how the current field configuration was meant to reduce capacity for the Raiders and the USC teams of the 1990’s. USC’s proposal would reduce capacity to 1990’s levels, but put people in seats that were never intended to be filled. This is due to the fact that the suite tower will remove thousands of seats along the south sideline.

Keeping the sun deck and seating people in the corners would put fans unnecessarily far from the playing field, with semi-obstructed views. I’m on the record for saying that the field should be centered, because it creates better sightlines. USC officials have said that keeping the field as is allows for more flexibility for events, but I don’t understand this argument. A soccer field (which is wider than a football field) doesn’t fit well in the current configuration. Concert stages are flexible and can be moved depending on the expected turnout. Plus, centering the field wouldn’t create any additional issues for putting the track back in for the Olympics (it would actually work better, because the press box would be off-center in their current proposal). If USC is going to call the Coliseum “one of the greatest cathedrals in college football,” then there shouldn’t be high school bleachers and tarped-off seats in the east endzone.

The yellow areas roughly represent how a 77k attendance looks now. The renovation would seat 77,500, but would put people in the corners behind the sun deck.

THE UNANSWERED

Due to the fact that USC released a limited number of renderings and isn’t releasing further details until the spring, there are still some unanswered questions about the renovation:

-How much will PSL’s cost? For most season ticket holders, this will shape their opinion of the renovation. USC has said that ⅔ of the seats won’t require an additional donation. But that still means that 25,800 seats will require a donation. My guess is that if you’re sitting on the sidelines in the 1st two levels of the stadium, you’ll be paying for some sort of PSL.

-Where will fans that currently sit in sections 4-10 above row 43 be relocated? Some of these people are higher-end donors and will likely be moving to the new club seats, but I’m sure that many won’t be able to afford premium seats.

-What changes will be made to the existing concourses? There have been some improvements to the concessions and bathrooms in recent years, but these structures are getting pretty old and could be replaced relatively inexpensively. As it stands, I doubt that people will be lining up to pay anything for PSL’s if all they are getting is new seats and aisles.

-What changes will be made to the locker rooms? I would assume that USC will build new locker rooms, training, and press facilities, but that isn’t mentioned anywhere in USC’s documentation.

-What changes will be made if Los Angeles gets the Olympics? The LA24 Olympic Bid has said that they’ll give $300 million towards renovations to the Coliseum, but it isn’t clear what this would entail. The LA bid book included renderings that look very different from USC’s proposal. If USC has a “phase 2” of their renovations, it would be smart for them to release renderings so that fans could see what their long-term vision of the Coliseum looks like.

Better get used to this view.

CONCLUSION

USC’s proposed renovation will put the athletic department on strong economic footing by adding the necessary suites and club seats. However, it is important to remember that the Coliseum has undergone very few changes in its first 92 years and will likely undergo few changes once USC finishes its renovations. Thus, it is extremely important that USC make changes that will best serve the facility over the next century.

As it stands, USC’s proposal lacks the ambition necessary to truly bring the facility up to 21st Century standards. It seems as if the University was overwhelmed by the size and age of the facility and just decided to build some suites and clubs and deal with everything else later. This strategy would be fine if USC had presented a master plan for the facility, with a multi-phased renovation that could be completed as funds are raised. But as it stands, USC fans will be stuck with an ugly, out of place suite tower, poor views of the football field, and no long-term plan to fix the remaining issues. I hope the fans really like their new seats.