Reimagining Reser: Oregon State Stadium Project Aims TO Transform Everyday Campus Life - Sport Oregon Voices

Sport Oregon Voices:

With a recent $50 million gift, a proposed Reser Stadium renovation moves to design phase, targeting year-round use, enhanced fan experience and competitive advantages

Located in the heart of the Oregon State campus, Reser Stadium already was ideally situated for football fans and university backers alike to gather every other Saturday in the fall to celebrate their favorite sports ritual together. 

But now – through a substantial $153 million renovation and reinventing of the west side of the stadium – the home of the Oregon State football program in Corvallis, Ore., is about to become much more than the occasional game day destination. Instead, it will be transformed into a vibrant, 365-day-a-year anchor of everyday life on campus. 

In addition to substantially enhancing the game day experience for home football games, the project involves the complete demolition and rebuilding of the west side of Reser Stadium to make way for construction of a variety of year-round facilities. It includes a state-of-the-art interactive welcome center for new and prospective students and student-athletes, new health center facilities for Corvallis campus students, health care facilities for OSU faculty and staff, and additional meeting and conference space for students, faculty and campus partners.

Many universities do not enjoy the convenience of on-campus athletic facilities, but Reser Stadium’s size and geographic relation to the rest of campus make it an ideal facility to help address campus-wide needs and serve the university on an everyday basis.

“The investment we’re making in this, and the built-in advantage of our stadium proximity within the footprint of the campus, allows us to really take advantage of that in terms of access,” said Scott Barnes, vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics at Oregon State. 

The Beavers recently announced an anonymous $50 million gift that brought the university closer to its fundraising goal for the project. Importantly, that influx of funds helped trigger approval to advance to the design phase of the project, with the OSU Board of Trustees Finance and Administration Committee granting its endorsement to move forward on Jan. 28. 

Just this week, university officials and the design team held their first development meeting, moving from the schematic phase to begin focusing on the more in-depth details of the project. Oregon State is working with Populous, SRG Partnership, Hoffman Construction and the Nations Group on the project’s design and implementation.

Conceived as part of a 10-year athletic facilities master plan and capital forecast, the Reser Stadium project was based on a number of foundational goals, according to Barnes. In addition to its year-round amenities that will service the broader university population, the stadium will feature a 360-degree stadium concourse to fully connect the venue. The project also calls for expanded concession and restroom facilities, enhanced sightlines, accessibility improvements and other fan amenities comparable to the east side of the stadium, which was renovated prior to the 2005 season.

In terms of seating, the school is reducing capacity of the stadium as part of the west-side renovation, with the final count likely ending up just north of 35,000. Instead, the focus is on the quality of the new experience, more and more the trend with spectator facilities around the country. Oregon State extensively surveyed its fan base to inform the process, and Barnes is very optimistic about the renovation’s ability to deliver on what fans want most.

"We surveyed Beaver Nation to explore and identify the most in-demand facilities, spaces and experiences," Barnes said. “This project meets that demand. It will not be an expansion of stadium seating, but rather a right-sizing of desired experiences and amenities to greatly improve the fan experience during games.”

From a competitive and financial standpoint, Barnes believes the renovation will provide a significant boost to not only the football program’s success, but all 17 of the school’s women’s and men’s sports programs. Barnes says that 70 percent of the athletic department’s revenue that ultimately funds the teams are generated through football and Reser Stadium.

“It really supports and strengthens our opportunity for football success, in the Pac-12 and nationally,” said Barnes. “This also is a project that will stabilize and grow our future revenue streams. We rely largely on football revenue, so the project not only generates the revenue needed to pay for itself, but goes well beyond that, too.”

Further, college football Saturdays in our state are critical economic drivers for not only the schools themselves, but for local hotels, restaurants, vendors and merchants, creating a wide-ranged impact that extends well beyond the walls of Reser Stadium, in this case. 

With a proposed timeline that includes construction beginning immediately following the 2021 football season, and a projected completion slated for the start of the 2023 season, there is still work to be done. Plans call for final approval of the project to be considered by the OSU board of trustees at its May meeting. The school also has about $20 million more to raise to reach its $85 million funding goal for the project, something Barnes is very confident will be achieved, especially considering the level of support and interest in the renovation.

“This project has been very well received by our donors, and it’s been a lot of fun to talk to them about it,” Barnes said. “I am grateful for our donors’ incredible generosity and enthusiasm for this project.”

And no doubt, come 2023, the campus community as a whole and the many thousands of football fans will be equally excited by their new confines, and the expansive amenities that extend well beyond game day.   

Peel away the obvious surface disappointment and psychological impact of this, and you’re left with a stark economic reality that immeasurably affects our local businesses and overall economy. Hotels, restaurants, vendors, merchants, gameday and transportation workers, the universities and high schools…the list goes on and on of those affected by the suspension of our favorite fall sports traditions. Entire economies and yearly budgets are banked around the handful of home football games at the University of Oregon and Oregon State alone. Our state depends on these events in so many ways.