Exactly five months ago today, it was reported that, pending what became a rubber stamp from the board of trustees, Nebraska would embark on a $55.5 million expansion of Memorial Stadium. The expanded stadium would’ve added roughly 5,000 seats to its current official capacity of just over 81,000.
Thanks to interest from Cornhuskers fans, however, those initial plans are in the process of being tweaked.
According to the Omaha World-Herald, the school will go to their board once again Friday and ask that the money being devoted to the expansion be increased from the current figure to $63 million. The additional monies would allow for the number of seats being added to go from 5,000 to 6,000.
Athletic director Tom Osborne said the request for additional funds is being made in order to meet the demand, although the school is leery of adding too many seats that may ultimately go unused and break their streak of selling out games that dates back to 1962.
“It appeared as though there was more demand for suites and skyboxes than we thought and maybe some potential for added club seating,” Osborne told the paper earlier today. “We feel this will be very cost-effective. ...
“It appears we have anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 people waiting for one type of seating or another. We feel there’s adequate demand to build this much — we don’t want to overshoot and build 10,000 or 15,000 seats and have some of them sitting empty.”
The project, which consists of work to the East side of the stadium, is still expected to begin in a few months and should be completed before the start of the 2013 season.