North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: A Look at the Red Zone
4/7/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 7, 2006
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- Fans attending Saturday's 4 p.m. spring football game will get the first good glimpse of the progress being made on Carter-Finley Stadium's north end zone construction project. But those who hope to buy Lifetime Rights Seating for some of the new 3,776 chairback seats in the Red Zone are running out of time, as the school approaches its seventh consecutive sellout of season tickets.
According to Wolfpack Club associate executive director Stephen Ponder, more than two-thirds of the seats available for LTRs have already been sold. That means about 1,230 of the new seats remain for sale.
 Construction is expected to be complete by August 1  |
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The other seats in the new section, which will fill in the lower bowl of the stadium where the old A.E. Finley Fieldhouse once stood, will go to students and the marching band (1,628) and to new permanent grandstands (1,580), neither of which are available for LTRs. In all, there will be 7,038 new seats in Carter-Finley, which will replace more than 4,400 temporary bleachers and most of the standing room that had been available in recent seasons.
Construction on the project - the third phase of the massive renovations that began in 2001 with construction of the Murphy Center and south end zone grandstands and continued with the completion of Vaughn Towers -- is on schedule to be completed by Aug. 1, according to Wolfpack Club executive director Bobby Purcell. General contractor T.A. Loving of Goldsboro had a relatively mild winter to work on the project, and only lost a half-day of work since it began construction the week following the 2005 regular-season finale win over Maryland.
Purcell expects everything to be ready by the time the Wolfpack opens the 2006 season with a Sept. 2 game against defending NCAA Division I-AA champion Appalachian State.
However, Purcell said, there have been some unexpected cost increases that have expanded the budget to $19.7 million, about $2.3 million higher than expected. The Wolfpack Club will finance the portion above the $15 million budgeted by the school for the project. The $15 million will be paid for with LTRs and a portion of ticket sales from the new seats.
 A diagram of the $1.24 million Dail Plaza |
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"The Red Zone seats will be some of the best in Carter-Finley Stadium," Purcell said. "They are the closest seats in the whole stadium to parking areas. And there are a lot of amenities, new restrooms, new concession stands, a very good few of the two new projection scoreboards, easy access to that side of the stadium.
"They are outstanding seats."
The final phase of construction will also create a new entrance to the stadium, from the new $1.24 million plaza that will connect Carter-Finley Stadium with the RBC Center, the home of NC State basketball. The Dail Plaza, funded by a private gift from long-time athletic department booster Curtis and Jacqueline Dail of Garner, will be a gateway to the newest seats.
The Wolfpack Club is selling bricks for the walkway on the new plaza for $250 each. More information about the "Bridge the Gap" campaign is available here on the Wolfpack Club website.
 A rendering of the piers that will honor NC State players whose jerseys are retired |
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Four of those $100,000 piers have already been sold to private donors.
An additional 32 piers inside the stadium at Dail Plaza North will feature every player who ever received first-team All-Southern or All-ACC honors in multiple seasons. Sponsorships of those piers, which will each honor two players, are available for $50,000 each.
A third group of 36 piers, also available for $50,000 each, will be located inside the stadium under the west grandstands. They will each honor four players, all of whom were selected first-team All-Southern or All-ACC at least once.
Other touches of history that will be added to the stadium are plaques that recognize every letterman in NC State football history, all 32 head coaches, all former NFL players, and players who have given to a scholarship endowment. There will also be plaques recognizing the Wolfpack's 23 bowl games and the school's 11 conference championships (three South Atlantic, one Southern Conference and seven ACC).
"I think Carter-Finley Stadium has always been a very nice place to see a football game, but it was bland in a lot of ways," Purcell said. "It didn't have a lot of character. Ii think with the additions we have made over the last six years and the finishing touches we are putting on it now, we have developed a place that will be very special to everyone who comes to see a game here.
"We have raised it to an even higher level."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
