Lucas Oil Stadium: A Pacers Digest "first look"

[Roaming Gnome]

As some of you may know, I'm one of the over 900 men and women that are constructing the new Lucas Oil Stadium in Downtown Indianapolis for the Colts. I wanted to share some of the photos I have taken in the recent weeks to give you a first look and an idea of the size of this place.

Lets start the tour

These images are of the multiple levels in the new stadium. The stadium is comprised of 7 levels, event/field level, street level, lower suites, club level, upper suites, terrace level and pressbox level. Everyone will be closer to the game, including the media due to the press box being suspended over the upper reaches of the terrace seating area.
In this shot, you can see the Colts blue seats being installed.






These are images thru the opening for the large one of a kind sliding glass window that will be motorized with the retracting roof. This window will seperate at the center with panes of the window retracting to the sides. You may also notice that the seat brackets are installed around a Colts horse shoe. Unlike Conseco, there will be no doubt who's home this belongs to.






Again, there's no doubt who plays their home games here!!!


Here are the views you will have when you walk up to this window. This window ledge will be part of the terrace concourse. You will be able to stand up here and see the downtown skyline.





Out with the old, in with the new Lucas Oil Stadium.


In these shots, here's the structural steel grid that will hold the stadiums two scoreboards. The new high-definition scoreboards in Lucas Oil Stadium (rendering below) will be five times larger and will have resolution nearly twice as good as those in the RCA Dome. Each board will be 97 feet wide by nearly 53 feet high. Three screens and a stadium nameplate will form each scoreboard.






Here is one of the scoreboards, courtousy of the Indianapolis Star.


Here is a shot of the field from the seats in "club level". The box truck below should give you an idea of the height from club to the field below. The picture was taken from the south endzone facing the north endzone. The windows that are under the deck across the field are not windows at all, but the actual doors into the stadium on South Street. Yes, that means that the playing surface does sit 35 feet below ground. The lower bowl seating area has not been completed yet, that is why there is so much space on the ground.


These are shots of the structural "Super Beams" that holds the roof and makes this stadium truely unique. There are 2 of these steel monsters that support the tremendous weight of the moving roof.




Here is a shot of the retractable roof that is being constructed. Indy will not have the first retractable but we will have the most unique one with the roof opening from the center to both sides. Somebody is going to win an award for this stadium. This is not a cookie cutter at all!


Here 3 pics of the extra wide concourses that will give everyone tons of room to move around the stadium. Yes, who ever designed this stadium loves windows because there are lots of places to see the outside world.






Here are the seating decks that are above the south endzone (side that faces I-70). The areas with the tanish/brown walls are actually the suites. Right now, since it is winter, the suites have been boarded up to allow workers to do their work out of the elements and the cold. The top level of suites here is going to be the quaterback club. I will explain more on this later. This end of the stadium will be finished with windows in all those panes behind the upper deck of seating here.


The quarter back club is going to be a suite that overlooks the field from the south endzone. This area will have seats, but also will have full size billiard tables, Many large screen TV's that will have all the games on and a large bar that will match the Colts Horseshoe that is built into the ceiling in this pic. As I said earlier...No doubt who plays here!





This is the retractable opening in the roof.




A world class stadium that will frame a world class city.




This will be one of the FOUR grand entry pavilions. This is the entry on the Misouri Street side. This pic was taken from the corridor that is for lower suites. The suite corridors overlook the main corridors in this stadium.


There are escalators all over this stadium. Last time I counted, I thought there were at least 16. Skip those stairs unless you want the exercise!


No sitting down on the job! Looks like you will be the first to test these seats out!

Cost: $675 Million Dollars

I will have more pics later on in the project and they will be right here on the digest.

[BoomBaby31]

Awesome pictures, Thank You for sharing.

[Suaveness]

That's really awesome. Gnome question about the stadium. You probably won't know this, and Polian said he wouldn't know until it's done, but do you think this stadium can become anywhere near as loud as RCA?

[Stryder]

Nice pictures!

[BoomBaby31]

Originally Posted by Suaveness

That's really awesome. Gnome question about the stadium. You probably won't know this, and Polian said he wouldn't know until it's done, but do you think this stadium can become anywhere near as loud as RCA?

I think we got a new copy of that fake noise we pumped into the stadium during the NE game, SO YES! lol j/k j/k j/k

[travmil]

Gnome I have a question that has been bothering me and my wife for a while. How in the hell did they get those enormous cranes out of there? They were still in there after the walls were up and I don't see any openings large enough to drive one of those bad boys through, and now the only cranes in there are much smaller. BTW absolutely outstanding pics, thank you for sharing.

[obnoxiousmodesty]

AMAZING! Thank you so much for these pictures. I spent some time downtown before New Year's for the first time in ages, and I was extremely impressed with the design and the sheer size of the new stadium.

[Roaming Gnome]

Originally Posted by Suaveness

That's really awesome. Gnome question about the stadium. You probably won't know this, and Polian said he wouldn't know until it's done, but do you think this stadium can become anywhere near as loud as RCA?

My guess would be no just for the fact that there is so much more space to fill, almost like Conseco. Also, when you add the accoustics that this building is going to have to reduce echo for Concerts, DCI, and other musical events, it's very hard for me to see this building being louder then the Dome. But, one thing to take into consideration....there are going to be 9,000 more bodies in there. Still, I'd say that there is just a ton of open air to fill and I don't see it being louder then across the street.

Just my guess, that is not based on anything said by design.

Originally Posted by travmil

Gnome I have a question that has been bothering me and my wife for a while. How in the hell did they get those enormous cranes out of there? They were still in there after the walls were up and I don't see any openings large enough to drive one of those bad boys through, and now the only cranes in there are much smaller. BTW absolutely outstanding pics, thank you for sharing.

On the south end of the Stadium (side that faces I-70) there was a dirt road that went under one of the archways and strait into the lower bowl. As for how they get those large cranes out. They set the mast level with the ground and drive strait out on the old road that was there before. Just 2 weeks ago, that road was scooped out and concrete was poured to replace where the larger cranes exited the structure.

[heywoode]

Thanks a MILLION, RG!

It is fantastic to get to see the stadium from an insider's point of view. It is so interesting to see the construction from all sides and just kind of evaluate how the day-to-day work gets done...

If I worked there, they would stop letting me take my camera to work because I would be constantly taking photos!

I really hope you can continue to post more as time goes on....if you can, great; if you can't, thanks for this glimpse, it is awesome!

[The Hero]

thanks!

[Slick Pinkham]

Originally Posted by Suaveness

That's really awesome. Gnome question about the stadium. You probably won't know this, and Polian said he wouldn't know until it's done, but do you think this stadium can become anywhere near as loud as RCA?

A slight design change will help.



(just kidding, folks!)

[timmanis2000]

Originally Posted by travmil

Gnome I have a question that has been bothering me and my wife for a while. How in the hell did they get those enormous cranes out of there? They were still in there after the walls were up and I don't see any openings large enough to drive one of those bad boys through, and now the only cranes in there are much smaller. BTW absolutely outstanding pics, thank you for sharing.

Actually I am the oiler on the enormous cranes. The largest one is now at the Cowboys stadium. It took 80 truck loads to get the biggest one out. The other 18000 we had to take apart and rebuild it on the outside of the stadium. It is 62 truck loads. That is semi truck loads. It is now located on the south east side of the stadium.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Hey, what happened to the pics? I got them in an e-mail, but I couldn't pull them up anymore. Any insight here would be cool.

[Hicks]

Too many people shared the links, and it became a major bandwidth-hog for the site and they needed to be taken down.

[heywoode]

That's why you right click and save them to your own computer when they first get posted. Then you can email them at will and don't burn down the PD server....

I can host them at my photobucket site if people still want to see them...

[Hoosier Daddy]

That would be cool if you could. I was originally forwarded those pics in an e-mail and traced them back to this site after they became unavailable.

Originally Posted by heywoode

That's why you right click and save them to your own computer when they first get posted. Then you can email them at will and don't burn down the PD server....

I can host them at my photobucket site if people still want to see them...

[heywoode]

http://s35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...Oil%20Stadium/

Save them to your own computer. Please do not link to them in an email or on a message board. I only have so much bandwidth for my account, and if I get burned by this, I won't forget it.

Sorry to be pissy, but I have to protect my ability to share photos with my family. Hope you enjoy them.

It was very cool of Roaming Gnome to post them for us to enjoy, and I figure since I got to enjoy them, other people should get to also.

[Hoosier Daddy]

No problem. The pics are saved to my computer. I appreciate the help!

[heywoode]

Glad to help, and thanks again to Gnome for hooking us all up.

I would love to see more!