I'm glad they are changing the seats, not merely painting them to get rid of the empty orange impression when the stadium is barely occupied. Those seats are aged and poorly designed, along with being simply too small. I assume a lessened seating capacity means the seats can now be slightly larger.
Bathrooms and refreshment stands are similarly in need of significant improvement. I'm referring to upper deck, where I sit for Canes games. I prefer low upper deck in that venue.
I hope they replace the escalators. I walk up and down the ramps, trying to maintain any semblance of the wondrous Orange Bowl. But in recent years with elderly relatives there have been numerous issues with the escalators. Often they are completely out. Sometimes they'll be functioning at the outset of the game but not when everyone is leaving. The yellow clad marshals have to stand at the top of the escalators and wave disbelieving fans toward the ramps.
Obviously these issues don't make headlines. It's one of the reasons I have to laugh when posters try to pretend the rooftop and other changes will make it the equivalent of a new stadium. At the Canes spring game I had plenty of time and space to walk the building and evaluate. It's a drab place with problems everywhere, a 27 year old structure that looks every bit of that. The inside club level has been patched to La Quinta lobby caliber, allowing the franchise big shots to enter and exit that area only, happy to look away and pretend the rest of the facility is not nearly as dull and overmatched as it really is, compared to new stadiums.
The original design was such a disaster on so many levels. If a new stadium were constructed, it would have considerably higher percentage of lower bowl seating, and those seats would be tighter to the field. Instead, we are indeed patching. They aren't removing those upper deck sections because Ross is a swell guy and determined to allow fans to watch big screen high definition replays. They want to get rid of upper deck lower cost seating so the big screens are the solution. The Canes have tarped over those sections for years. The TVs replace the tarps. With fewer upper deck seats they can charge more for upper level seats in general. The new field level seats will be many times as expensive as the upper deck seating that is eliminated, allowing the bottom line to remain essentially the same, if not higher, despite the considerable drop in overall capacity. Besides, fans in those lower seats are more likely to spend higher amounts on parking and concessions and merchandise. Everything has an agenda, not always obvious.
