STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State’s Board of Trustees voted Tuesday and approved a multi-year, multi-phase renovation of Beaver Stadium. It passed with a vote of 26-2. Three trustees abstained from voting. The stadium renovation is slated to not exceed $700 million and the most noticeable changes to the venue — focused on the stadium’s west side — will begin at the conclusion of the 2024 football season.
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The expectation is that the renovation will take place during the next three seasons and have minimal impact on football Saturdays.
“We’re excited to get to this point,” athletic director Pat Kraft told The Athletic. “We’ve worked extremely hard since I’ve been here at figuring out what is the best strategy for Beaver Stadium. … We are going to continue to have the best environment in college football. We will make sure we are always over 100,000 seats and we believe our fans deserve to have certain amenities that most modern-day stadiums and our peers have.”
Tuesday’s vote formalizes a project that has been at the forefront of conversations around Penn State for nearly a decade. Within the past year, Penn State’s trustees approved $70 million to be used for permits, design costs, consultant expenses and priority maintenance in the stadium. In the fall of 2023, it hired Populous, the Kansas City-based architecture firm, to design the project. Populous also renovated Texas A&M’s Kyle Field and is working with the Buffalo Bills on their new stadium, among others.
GO DEEPERPenn State picks Populous for Beaver Stadium renovationsWhile the full design for the renovated Beaver Stadium is not yet ready to be shared with the public, this is the first major renovation of the football stadium since 2001 when luxury suites and the south end zone deck were added.
As Penn State officially moves forward with this renovation here’s what we know:
What’s the timeline?
Construction will begin after this football season (January 2025) and conclude before the 2027 football season. The construction will be done in phases so the team can continue playing in the stadium.
Smaller projects that are part of this renovation are already happening or have happened inside the stadium as part of the $70 million from last year. Projects like winterizing, insulating pipes, adding two new scoreboards, improving the Northeast and Southeast corners of the stadium, improving fan circulation on the east side and ongoing stadium maintenance are all part of this renovation. Barricades around portions of the stadium this spring are a testament to some of those projects. A new ribbon video board on the south end (replacing the old one) will be in place for this upcoming football season. The other video board will be replaced too.
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There was an increased need to get winter maintenance done in case Penn State would host a College Football Playoff game this December — upgrades needed to be done this past winter so the stadium would be functional when the temperatures dip below freezing. Penn State now is in a position to host a Playoff game because that priority maintenance has been addressed. The winterizing efforts also open the door for Beaver Stadium to host other non-football winter events in the stadium.
The most noticeable visual change to the stadium will happen after this football season when the west side (press box side) renovation begins. The current structure that holds the press box, radio booths and coach’s booth will be torn down. Club, loge, executive and founder’s suites will be added to this side of the stadium. Those suites will be placed above the traditional bowl-style seating which will remain.
There will be temporary seating in place in that upper bowl area. The following offseason there would be work done on the lower bowl, Kraft said.
Will the seating capacity change?
Penn State was adamant about keeping the capacity above 100,000 and will do so, Kraft said. While they haven’t given an exact figure, Kraft called the seating capacity a “critical piece” of the renovation.
“We will be well over 100,000 and we continue to make that a priority,” Kraft said. “Will fans lose their seats? No. That’s why it’s important. When you have 94,000 season ticket holders (which includes student season tickets), having over 100,000 seats is critically important. There will be very, very minimal issues through the renovation.”
During those seasons when renovations will be taking place around the football schedule, there will be an impact on the stadium’s west side, but the plan is to have that impact be as minimal as possible for fans.
“The way we’re phasing the construction we really don’t lose very many seats even during the construction time as we’re working through those three seasons,” said Sara Thorndike, Penn State’s senior vice president for finance & business/treasurer. “That was critically important to us.”
Beaver Stadium is that you? pic.twitter.com/zOe0IPTTiD
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) May 21, 2024
What will the finished product look like?
Penn State released one photo on Tuesday of what this potential renovation could look like.
“Today is so important so we can continue to finish the process of design — which we’re close,” Kraft said. “We’re going to be very transparent. I think it’s critical to show where we are, what’s coming, what it’s going to look like. There are just a lot of steps in between that right now.”
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We do know the footprint of the venue will be significantly larger in part because of the expanded concourses.
“We feel really comfortable about the design. The design drives where your revenue is coming from,” Kraft said. “We can not impact football seasons. We have to be able to order the steel. We’re not ready to show what the total design will be but we are really in a position that we feel good about it.”
Here’s what the renovation will include beyond code upgrades and winterization:
- Upgraded field lighting to meet NCAA standards
- Club, loge, executive and founder’s suites on the stadium’s west side
- Expanded concourses on the east and west sides (14 feet now to 50, 55 feet)
- Gate F concourse will be used to help get fan traffic into the stadium
- Upgraded press box
- Two new video boards (replacing the two current ones)
- Improved WiFi/cellular service
- Upgraded concessions
- Improved restrooms
- Welcome center for admissions
- Event space for weddings, meetings
“This building will be living and breathing for 365 days per year,” Kraft said.
Why not build a new stadium?
Penn State went the renovation route because it estimated that a new venue would cost at least $1.5 billion. The top end of the budget for the renovation is $700 million.
“We looked at multiple different options for the stadium,” said Thorndike. “We looked at just repairing it which would cost us a couple hundred million dollars with no new revenue. We looked at replacing it entirely, which would probably result in a smaller stadium and more debt than we can afford. And, we looked at the renovation scenario which is frankly the only financially feasible one for us and one that was stress tested extensively with all different scenarios — both current and future expectations for the next 30 years.”
Now, the 64-year-old venue had a backlog of $200 million in deferred maintenance when Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi went to the board in February of 2023 to discuss preliminary plans for a renovation.
The goal of using the venue for more than just football games remains. It started to do as much this spring when country artist Luke Combs performed in front of 80,000-plus people in the stadium.
How will it be financed?
This is a massive financial undertaking and it comes at a time when many fans throughout college sports have expressed donor fatigue. The $700 million price tag is the highest end figure, which is a number that has some contingencies in it, Thorndike said. Of course, they’re aiming to spend less than $700 million.
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Between the rising costs associated with attending a game to asks to give to collectives and traditional university-wide initiatives, Penn State previously announced that it aims to raise at least $200 million for the renovation and other athletic department priorities. The renovation will be financed entirely by athletics, meaning none of the money will come from the educational budget or tuition.
“We’ve done a lot of stress testing on the renovation scenario because we’re looking at it over 30 years,” Thorndike said. “We don’t intend to borrow against the whole project, although our financial scenarios do show that just to be extremely conservative. But as we raise philanthropy, have naming opportunities, get more ticket revenues, we’re going to phase the debt over those three years (for construction) to give us flexibility to only borrow what we need to. If we need to, we’ll borrow for less than 30 years just to maximize the financial results of the project.”
Penn State’s long-term hope is the additional revenue that will come from hosting other events in the renovated stadium — like concerts, an outdoor hockey game, a wrestling match or a soccer friendly — will not only offset the costs but also improve the overall athletic department budget. Major events in the stadium also help bring people to the area which remains a point of emphasis.
(Photo: Matthew O’Haren / USA Today)
Audrey Snyder has covered Penn State since 2012 for various outlets, including The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Patriot-News and DKPittsburghSports. Snyder is an active member of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM) and is the professional adviser for Penn State’s student chapter. Follow Audrey on Twitter @audsnyder4
