USC’s Williams-Brice stadium is going green
July 23, 2015
Photo Gallery: http://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/article28427851.html
It was a yearly dilemma. South Carolina fans loved their football stadium and loved their campus, but they couldn’t love it together in one spot.
“I felt like it just needed a lot of work, and there’s still a lot of work to be done,” longtime USC Board of Trustees member William Hubbard said. “It was always in the back of our minds that if we could ever just get that final piece of the puzzle done, it would be transformative.”
The completion of Springs-Brooks Plaza around Williams-Brice Stadium will change what was a concrete and asphalt jungle into a pleasant, green walking tour. It’s been a passion of Hubbard’s, to make USC as bedecked with lawns and stands of trees as most other college campuses.
The Plaza project, on schedule to be completed by the first home game on Sept. 12, will surround the stadium with brick and concrete, trees (scarlet oaks will bud a garnet canopy during the fall), grass quadrangles, items unique to USC – like architecture and fencing similar to the columns at the university’s original entrance -- and palmetto fronds. Instead of wending between cars parked in each corner and trying to meet a friend in the midst of 80,000 others, fans will now have open spaces and landmarks to set up a rendezvous or a picnic.
“There’s going to be several trees planted in that area. When they get some size to them, hopefully it’s going to look better than The Grove at Ole Miss,” Hubbard said. “Most of them are hardwoods, so we’ll have good fall color during the football season. Part of the overall campus vision was to make the University of South Carolina green and shady and cool, and that’s the goal.”
Williams-Brice was unique for its light structure, swaying upper decks and that it was filled to near-capacity every Saturday, but casual visitors to USC never saw the total package. The Board and other USC supporters wanted visitors to see the entire campus, but if they came for a football game, they were sitting in the stadium near the interstate, not touring the tree-lined Horseshoe.
While the campus has grown to nearly touch the stadium, it’s still off-campus. There was no way to change that, so part of the plaza project was to try to instill some of the Horseshoe’s ambience to what was a giant slab of cement perched on the edge of town.
USC contacted Wood & Partners, the landscape architects who also redesigned the former Farmer’s Market into Gamecock Park. Kyle Theodore, who specializes in parks and recreational areas and was integral to the design of Gamecock Park, was the woman in charge.
“It was to emphasize the pedestrian experience,” Theodore said. “Going in to enjoy a game, our goal was that they have a pleasant experience on the way into the stadium. And that included moving the parkingaway from the stadium and introducing some greenspace and trees.”
Theodore used the architecture at the Horseshoe and Gamecock Park for the plaza, something she repeated in a ring around the stadium, and placed palmetto trees on the north and south ends. Like they had to at Carolina Stadium, the palmettos will take a while to reach full bloom, but once they do, they’ll provide a picturesque gameday backdrop.
The project seeks to make visitors feel as if they’re walking from the Horseshoe directly into the stadium. Theodore sought not only the greenery, but the brick walkways from USC’s most iconic symbol.
“It’s a pretty unique stadium. We took a lot of the design queues from the stadium itself, so we’re playing up on that architecture,” Theodore said. “The signature columns of the university, the fencing and gating and whatnot, will tie the two together.”
Drought conditions, triple-digit temperatures and pop-up thunderstorms have knocked some days out of construction, but overall, the project is on pace for completion by Sept. 12. Irrigation has been set up so the greenery can survive the blistering Columbia summers, and Theodore promised there would be no more exposed dirt or temporary fencing on gameday.
“Failure is not an option on this particular project,” she said. “It will be done on Opening Day.”
Campus will likely never grow to encompass the stadium, but it can present a campus feel. Eight hundred trees were planted in Gamecock Park, power lines were moved from Bluff Road so the West stands can have an unobstructed view from the Park and now the stadium area will mimic its neighbor.
“I think a lot of Carolina fans, it felt over the years, it was a disadvantage for us to have a football stadium in an area that just didn’t look at all like a college campus,” Hubbard said. “Trees around the Fairgrounds was the start of it, and they’ve been instrumental in buying into what USC wants to be. We got Gamecock Park going. It all fits together, part of an overall plan to really try to make our stadium area look like an area part of a college campus. “What we’re going to do will fundamentally change the perception of our stadium, our program and the overall environment.”
Springs-Brooks Plaza
Where: Around Williams-Brice Stadium
What: A pedestrian-friendly plaza with grass and tree-lined brick walkways.
Cost: $14.5 million
Namesake: Tami Springs-Brooks, the widow of the former president of the Hooters dining chain, donated $2.7 million.
New feature: An expanded gift store and ticket office on the corner of Key Road and George Rogers Blvd.
Also: George Rogers statue will go on the northwest corner
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/other-usc-sports/article28431595.html#storylink=cpy
July 23, 2015
Photo Gallery: http://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/article28427851.html
It was a yearly dilemma. South Carolina fans loved their football stadium and loved their campus, but they couldn’t love it together in one spot.
“I felt like it just needed a lot of work, and there’s still a lot of work to be done,” longtime USC Board of Trustees member William Hubbard said. “It was always in the back of our minds that if we could ever just get that final piece of the puzzle done, it would be transformative.”
The completion of Springs-Brooks Plaza around Williams-Brice Stadium will change what was a concrete and asphalt jungle into a pleasant, green walking tour. It’s been a passion of Hubbard’s, to make USC as bedecked with lawns and stands of trees as most other college campuses.
The Plaza project, on schedule to be completed by the first home game on Sept. 12, will surround the stadium with brick and concrete, trees (scarlet oaks will bud a garnet canopy during the fall), grass quadrangles, items unique to USC – like architecture and fencing similar to the columns at the university’s original entrance -- and palmetto fronds. Instead of wending between cars parked in each corner and trying to meet a friend in the midst of 80,000 others, fans will now have open spaces and landmarks to set up a rendezvous or a picnic.
“There’s going to be several trees planted in that area. When they get some size to them, hopefully it’s going to look better than The Grove at Ole Miss,” Hubbard said. “Most of them are hardwoods, so we’ll have good fall color during the football season. Part of the overall campus vision was to make the University of South Carolina green and shady and cool, and that’s the goal.”
Williams-Brice was unique for its light structure, swaying upper decks and that it was filled to near-capacity every Saturday, but casual visitors to USC never saw the total package. The Board and other USC supporters wanted visitors to see the entire campus, but if they came for a football game, they were sitting in the stadium near the interstate, not touring the tree-lined Horseshoe.
While the campus has grown to nearly touch the stadium, it’s still off-campus. There was no way to change that, so part of the plaza project was to try to instill some of the Horseshoe’s ambience to what was a giant slab of cement perched on the edge of town.
USC contacted Wood & Partners, the landscape architects who also redesigned the former Farmer’s Market into Gamecock Park. Kyle Theodore, who specializes in parks and recreational areas and was integral to the design of Gamecock Park, was the woman in charge.
“It was to emphasize the pedestrian experience,” Theodore said. “Going in to enjoy a game, our goal was that they have a pleasant experience on the way into the stadium. And that included moving the parkingaway from the stadium and introducing some greenspace and trees.”
Theodore used the architecture at the Horseshoe and Gamecock Park for the plaza, something she repeated in a ring around the stadium, and placed palmetto trees on the north and south ends. Like they had to at Carolina Stadium, the palmettos will take a while to reach full bloom, but once they do, they’ll provide a picturesque gameday backdrop.
The project seeks to make visitors feel as if they’re walking from the Horseshoe directly into the stadium. Theodore sought not only the greenery, but the brick walkways from USC’s most iconic symbol.
“It’s a pretty unique stadium. We took a lot of the design queues from the stadium itself, so we’re playing up on that architecture,” Theodore said. “The signature columns of the university, the fencing and gating and whatnot, will tie the two together.”
Drought conditions, triple-digit temperatures and pop-up thunderstorms have knocked some days out of construction, but overall, the project is on pace for completion by Sept. 12. Irrigation has been set up so the greenery can survive the blistering Columbia summers, and Theodore promised there would be no more exposed dirt or temporary fencing on gameday.
“Failure is not an option on this particular project,” she said. “It will be done on Opening Day.”
Campus will likely never grow to encompass the stadium, but it can present a campus feel. Eight hundred trees were planted in Gamecock Park, power lines were moved from Bluff Road so the West stands can have an unobstructed view from the Park and now the stadium area will mimic its neighbor.
“I think a lot of Carolina fans, it felt over the years, it was a disadvantage for us to have a football stadium in an area that just didn’t look at all like a college campus,” Hubbard said. “Trees around the Fairgrounds was the start of it, and they’ve been instrumental in buying into what USC wants to be. We got Gamecock Park going. It all fits together, part of an overall plan to really try to make our stadium area look like an area part of a college campus. “What we’re going to do will fundamentally change the perception of our stadium, our program and the overall environment.”
Springs-Brooks Plaza
Where: Around Williams-Brice Stadium
What: A pedestrian-friendly plaza with grass and tree-lined brick walkways.
Cost: $14.5 million
Namesake: Tami Springs-Brooks, the widow of the former president of the Hooters dining chain, donated $2.7 million.
New feature: An expanded gift store and ticket office on the corner of Key Road and George Rogers Blvd.
Also: George Rogers statue will go on the northwest corner
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/other-usc-sports/article28431595.html#storylink=cpy
Last edited by a moderator:
