Penn State Vice President for Athletics Patrick Kraft says that the department is closing in on its latest recommendation regarding the renovation or rebuild of Beaver Stadium. Kraft did not — much like his predecessor, Sandy Barbour — commit or comment much in the way of a definite timeline for when such a project might begin.
“We’re close,” Kraft said on Friday at Beaver Stadium. “I think we’re at the point we had a study that was done. There’s a lot of studies going on and nothing was done … in the past eight, nine years there were 19 studies done on Beaver Stadium. It’s not for a lack of information.”
“Now I will tell you this, I feel very comfortable in the next — you know, you have the holidays and January and February, but we will have a recommendation to [Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi] and the board as to what direction we need to move in. So I do think it’s coming. Now, what the board decides and how they want to move because it is a huge project [is up to them.]”
Penn State’s Board of Trustees is set to meet for the first time in 2023 on Feb. 16 and 17. The next scheduled full-board meeting after that would then take place in early May.
In recent years the prevailing sentiment both publicly and conversationally has been the increasing likelihood Penn State will lean toward a renovation project rather than a full-on rebuild of the Nittany Lions’ iconic home field. The most comparable rebuild in modern days is Texas A&M’s renovation and rebuild of Kyle Field which was approved for $485 million.
Any renovations would likely take place over a series of years and phases. Beaver Stadium has undergone various renovation projects inside and outside the stadium in recent years. Any full rebuild project would also happen in phases but would come with a pragmatic financial limitation. Kraft did not indicate what Penn State’s maximum budgetary number currently is.
“I make no bones about it. I love this building. I love coming in this building, Beaver Stadium. I love the history of this building. When I walk the parking lots and I talk to people about having generations of memories in this building, so I want to make this building better and we have to do that,” Kraft added. “We’re very close. All the data is there. Now figuring out the financial models, how would it work, what’s the recommendation, and so we’re close. To build a new stadium, there’s a threshold. Let me just put it that way. To build new anywhere, it’s expensive. Let me just put it that way. I don’t know. We have some numbers, but if you’re building new there is a financial threshold that building new just would be —it could be infeasible, not feasible with the financial piece.
“We are very proud of having 107,000 and over 100,000 fans. No one is building 100,000 seat stadiums. That’s important to us. I think that’s an important piece to who we are.”
How this transpires in the coming years remains to be seen, but Kraft, much like Barbour, is looking to tackle the future of a building that needs more than its fair share of face lifts and an answer to the question of when, not if, they finally happen.
