KU’s 2024 commencement will be at football stadium, despite construction; Girod and Goff offer other details about stadium overhaul

photo by: University of Kansas/HNTB

This rendering shows the most recent design for a renovated David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. The rendering also shows some possibilities for ancillary development on the east side of the stadium, although KU is still awaiting proposals from developers on that portion of the project.

KU’s commencement ceremony in 2024 will include its traditional walk down the Hill into the football stadium — even if you might feel like you need to wear a hardhat instead of a mortarboard.

University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod recently promised that construction activity at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium won’t prevent KU from having its commencement ceremonies at the stadium, even though it will be in the midst of a $300 million renovation.

“I have said that we do plan on being in the stadium for graduation, as well,” Girod said in a recent video message to students, faculty and staff. “If you are worried about that, don’t worry about it. We will walk the Hill this year.”

That’s a much stronger statement than Girod made about the topic earlier this month when KU held a press conference to formally kick off the $300 million-plus Gateway District project that aims to revamp the football stadium, build a conference center and add other amenities to the area at 11th and Mississippi streets.

At that event, Girod said, “at the moment, it is our intent to have graduation in the stadium.”

In the recent video message, Girod said he has instructed the construction manager for the project to plan accordingly for the east grandstands and the football field of the stadium to be cleared of construction materials for the May commencement date.

What attendees to the ceremony will have to contend with to get there might be a different matter. By the May commencement, the stadium will be six months into a two-year construction project. KU officials plan to begin demolition work to parts of the stadium in early December, and plan to begin constructing new portions of the stadium by early 2024, athletic director Travis Goff said in the same video message to the university. What that may mean for parking lots and other access points to the stadium isn’t yet clear.

The project won’t be completed until August of 2025. KU, however, will play its 2024 season in the stadium. But, as we reported earlier this month, the stadium will be operating at a reduced capacity. KU officials have yet to say how many seats will be available for the 2024 season. But the way they have talked about construction plans, it is easy to envision the stadium operating at less than half its capacity of about 47,000 people. It sounds like the entire west side and north end of the stadium will be off limits to fans.

In the recent video message, Goff did not offer a number but said it would be a “really intimate environment” next season. He said people who have season tickets for the 2023 season will be the fans most likely to get the limited number of tickets available next season.

“If you are not a season ticket holder this year, jump on that now,” Goff said.

I don’t think that is just a marketing ploy ahead of Friday’s season opener for the Jayhawks. While KU hasn’t been producing sellouts recently, if the stadium is at about half capacity next year, that is likely to create a shortage of at least 15,000 or more tickets, even using KU’s less than stellar home attendance numbers from past years. Here’s some quick math on that: Half of KU’s stated capacity of 47,233 is just less than 24,000 seats. KU had sellout home games last season, and its least attended game brought just under 35,000 people to the stadium.

No word yet on when KU will make decisions on what its capacity will be for the 2024 season, but that will be a number to watch for. Game days next season will be different.

In fact, this upcoming season really will be an end-of-an-era moment. The stadium is never going to be the same again, and the next couple of years could be on the verge of change overload for some fans.

“We are going to need a manual to kind of learn, not just relearn, but learn in a whole new manner how Jayhawk fans and supporters will experience game day in Lawrence, Kansas,” Goff said in his video conversation with Girod.

A big question is where will everybody park. A more heated question — perhaps fueled by actual briquettes — is where will everybody tailgate?

In their conversation, Goff and Girod didn’t get into any specifics about the parking and tailgating possibilities, but did acknowledge that it is a top of mind issue with nearly every group they speak to.

“Obviously, we need to solve that problem,” Girod said. “We have three or four different ways to do that. I’m not particularly concerned about it, but I appreciate everybody’s concern about it.”

In both word and deed, KU has provided information that parking garages are going to be part of the solution. In the press conference earlier this month, Girod said “stacked parking,” which is another term for parking garages, is likely. Additionally, we reported in early August that KU has commissioned a traffic impact study that is looking at two potential garage sites. One would be basically on a portion of the parking lot that is immediately east of the stadium. The second would be west of the stadium in a parking lot behind Joseph R. Pearson Hall.

But how do you tailgate in a parking garage? If you are on the roof of the garage, you could have a grill and the other traditional elements of a tailgate party. But that presumably would leave hundreds of people on other levels with a place to park but no place to really tailgate.

While KU officials aren’t yet providing details, they are projecting confidence they will come up with a plan people will like. And they also are doing something a little unusual: They’re reminding people that KU’s current tailgating arrangements aren’t stellar.

“If we allow ourselves, you could pretty easily state that because we have played in a 100-year-old stadium without major investment to it, we really have just allowed the environment to naturally evolve,” Goff said in response to a question during the kickoff event earlier this month. “We have just done our best with the parking dynamic. We have done our best with what tailgating kind of naturally creates in that environment.

“This project gives us the chance to really strategically tackle it in the right manner, a manner that fits a more modern game day experience … So we are excited about that because sometimes not until you have a catalyst like this can you really enhance and improve something that has, frankly, just been OK, at the best.”

In the recent video message, Goff also said he thinks the new stadium is going to include so many amenities that KU fans might not spend as much time tailgating.

“Our people are going to be eager to get into this facility,” Goff said. “You may want to do some tailgating, but you also are going to be excited to get in and experience what world-class concourses look like, and incredible premium club hospitality spaces that will be activated well before kickoff.”

photo by: University of Kansas/HNTB

This rendering shows the most recent design for a renovated David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. The rendering also shows some possibilities for ancillary development on the east side of the stadium, although KU is still awaiting proposals from developers on that portion of the project.

Fans also are going to need some time to get used to the new view. Girod and Goff during the recent video message both spent a little time talking about how seating will be different in the revamped stadium.

Goff said grandstands will be in much more of a decklike fashion than the current arrangement, where the stands at the ground level are the closet to the field and then the stands slope back the higher you go.

The remodeled stadium will have a first, second and third tier stacked more on top of each other. Girod said the configuration will be “much more vertical,” which will allow more seats to be closer to the field.

“We are really packing the field, if you will,” Girod said.

One other detail about the future design that Girod has mentioned that could get lost, but really shouldn’t, involves not seats but rather sacrifice. Girod on multiple occasions has made a point to mention that the KU stadium is a war memorial.

He said that’s a fact that unfortunately has become a bit of a “hidden secret.” He said if people do know of its war memorial status, many people mistakenly believe it is a memorial to World War II. It is not. The stadium, which opened in 1921, was dedicated as a memorial to KU students who died in World War I.

Girod said KU is in active discussions with the National World War I museum in Kansas City, Missouri, to help the university create design elements that better highlight the war memorial aspect of the stadium.

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