The trend within college football is to make stadiums bigger and increase capacity. By contrast, a primary goal for Kroger Field was to increase the stadium’s intimacy and provide competitive advantage for the UK football program by actually reducing capacity from 67,000 to 61,000 seats to make it smaller, louder and captivating atmosphere by bringing fans closer to the action. The renovation and addition were phased over two years without interruptions to events.

The delivery of early design packages on a complex stadium project means changes are inevitable, so managing the process is critical. For the University of Kentucky Kroger Field Renovation project, the HNTB team delivered construction documents as four separate Design Releases — the first being a Structural Steel Package, which was issued six months prior to the final design being issued for bid.