Due to the construction of a new $14 million indoor practice facility, about 700 parking spaces in the Stadium Southeast Red Lot at Carter-Finley Stadium will be unavailable for use during the 2014 N.C. State football season.
N.C. State Athletics has offset the loss of spots caused by the new facility by identifying additional parking inventory around the stadium complex to accommodate the displaced tailgaters, according to Michael Lipitz, senior associate athletics director at N.C. State, though they might not be as close to the stadium.
“It’s a net-zero loss with respect to parking,” Lipitz said. “There are no short-term or long-term impacts to parking. It’s just different locations where folks are going to have to park.”
The indoor practice facility will begin this June and be completed in March 2015. Funded by private donors to the Wolfpack Club, the complex will include a full-length indoor football field, training and conditioning space beyond both end zones, four 120-yard sprint lanes, an in-ground pit and above-ground pad for track disciplines.
The facility will be located in what is now the Southeast Lot at the corner of Westchase Boulevard and the outer loop road next to Carter-Finley Stadium.
The Stadium Southeast Red Lot is a parking lot for Wolfpack Club members and season-ticket holders. The parking locations are assigned in priority order according to Wolfpack Club donor ranking and are also based on the specific requests of individual donors, Lipitz said.
However, donors who park in the Southeast Red Lot are not the only people whose parking locations will be affected. All lots around the stadium complex are expected to be affected in some way by the construction of the Indoor Facility, according to N.C. State Athletics.
People with lower donor rankings who originally parked in the Southeast Lot will be moved to different lots. However, the donors whose rankings qualify them for other lots will placed there, causing people who park in these lots to be displaced in a similar way.
Zac Tart, an N.C. State alum and seasons ticket holder since 2011, said he attended every home football game with a group of 10 or 12 cars full of people who all park and tailgate together in the Trinity Lot.
Tart said if he or any of his group had to change lots, they would all be disappointed. He said he and his friends prefer the Trinity Lot because it’s near the stadium, it’s a grass lot and it is across from the student lot, so it is always filled with people his age.
“It’s where we’ve always gone,” Tart said. “If I have to move somewhere else, I’m probably going to be upset.”
However, Tart said he can’t fault N.C. State for wanting to build a new facility to help the team train and get better.
“In the end that’s why we’re there,” Tart said.
Lipitz said additional spots are going to be added around the complex, so the parking spots lost due to the construction of the Indoor Facility will be fully offset.
Details about switched spots will be finalized and communicated to Wolfpack Club members and football season ticket holders in the coming weeks during the normal ticket renewal and parking assignment process, according to Lipitz.
The new Indoor Facility has been in the works for a long time and is necessary in order to protect the safety of student athletes and minimize the amount of practice time lost due to inclement weather, Lipitz said.
“If you look around within the ACC as well as nationally, both with respect to football as well as track and field and other field sports, these types of facilities have become the norm with respect to student-athlete welfare, player safety and maximizing the practice times that are allowed,” Lipitz said.
The number of incidents of inclement weather North Carolina saw this year and the cancelled practices and workouts that resulted from them is an example of how the facility will benefit athletics programs, according to Lipitz.
“This kind of facility really allows the student athletes to maximize their time preparing for competition,” Lipitz said.
All athletic teams, not only football, will be able to use the facility on an as-needed basis, according to Liptiz.
“All 23 teams will be able to get in there and use it for everything related to strength and conditioning, such as general workouts, when needed,” Lipitz said. “It’s is going to be a tremendous benefit to the entire department, all 550 student athletes.”
