Upon completion of its 11,000-seat addition last summer, LSU's 75-year-old Tiger Stadium became one of the largest on-campus football stadiums in the country, made possible by a unique financial arrangement through the Tiger Athletic Foundation.

"This is an exciting and important step for LSU Athletics," said LSU Athletic Director Joe Dean. "Tiger Stadium has long been one of the great arenas in the world of athletics, and this expansion (has reinforced) that status well into the next century."

The expansion gives Tiger Stadium approximately 90,665 seats, making it the fourth-largest on-campus collegiate football stadium in the country behind Tennessee's Neyland Stadium (102,544), Michigan Stadium (102,501) and Penn State's Beaver Stadium (93,967).

According to joint venture project manager Vernon Anderson, MAPP-BEERS, Baton Rouge, the high-rise structure is 13 stories of cast-in-place concrete, with precast hollow core plank and concrete slab construction. It has three passenger elevators and one freight traction type elevator, as well as four switchback escalators.

The mechanical system is a chilled water supply piped system with air handler units at the mechanical mezzanine level, and is equipped with a booster firewater pump, domestic water pump and emergency generator system.

Anderson said the design/build project is unique in several ways. First, the project's design and construction were driven by a fast-track accelerated construction schedule, with only 625 days from start to completion.

Second, the unique nature of operating in an active university campus, with daily and seasonal activities, required special attention by the construction team, i. e. test days, which required no noise, and game days, which required special security and setup activities to protect the construction site and visiting fans.

MAPP-BEERS had to make special provisions for the safety of the public/fans, visiting team, equipment vehicles and buses, and protection of the construction site during the seven home games. These provisions included fencing, temporary concrete walks and drives, and cleaning and washing down the areas where the fans and visiting team entered the existing stadium.

Since these areas were located in the middle of the construction site, construction activities were halted from mid Friday afternoon until Sunday morning.

Thirdly, there were tight site requirements. The actual construction site was located between the existing stadium and surrounding dormitories. In fact, construction at the existing stadium was within 10 ft. of the existing dormitories.

One of the biggest challenges came at the project's outset, when crews had to work around existing underground utilities that were more than 75 years old and 100-year-old oak and magnolia tress that could not be removed.

"Every day, we encountered utilities that the university did not know existed," Anderson said. "We worked closely with the University Facilities Department and the architect and engineer to locate, isolate and either relocate or update these utilities. The fact that these utilities were there and no one knew about them impacted our construction schedule by approximately four to six weeks."