nick pironio
Where five weeks ago stood the A.E. Finley Field House at Carter-Finley Stadium, there is now newly shaved earth – red clay waiting for yet another expansion on the school’s football stomping ground. The northeast end zone is waiting for a 7,100-seat expansion, which the Wolfpack Club calls “The Red Zone.”
“Right now, we are lining up all the subcontractors and making sure everyone knows how things are going,” David Horning, senior associate athletics director, said.
Horning said the University hired contracting company T.A. Loving to create its newest athletic installment. T.A. Loving also satisfied a contract with the school to build the Murphy Center – a players’ Eden connected to the stadium on the south end.
“It’s going to be a combination of chair backs, bench seating and something called permanent concourse bench seats,” Horning said. “We are estimating 7,100 seats, but we can’t say for sure because architects draw things differently sometimes.”
Horning said a $15 million budget governs the project, a budget the University is dedicating itself to.
“There has been some news that it might come out to 16.3 [million dollars], but the Wolfpack Club is looking at different options about construction and everything,” he said. “We have a certain budget in mind, and we are going to keep that budget.”
He suggested the project will be relatively easy to finish once it’s started compared to recent athletic constructions like the Murphy Center and the $38 million Vaughn Towers because it doesn’t have the complex and fancy interior design.
“There will just be two very basic game-day locker rooms beneath it,” Horning said. “Once it gets going, we are expecting it to be done pretty fast. We are looking at it to be finished in July or August.”