By: Ella Kelley, FS Communications Student Assistant
As the Tennessee Volunteer football team experienced another win over Oklahoma last week, we took the opportunity to learn more about how Facilities Services Design Project Manager Eric Ducote is contributing to “wins” with continued Neyland Stadium renovations.
According to Tennessee Athletics, the construction project supports their goals of “modernizing the fan and visitor experience through enhanced amenities and diversified seating options, improving fan safety and security and aligning stadium features and aesthetics with campus architectural standards.” The project began in 2023 and will see new improvements each football season through fall of 2026.
Since the last football season, the design and construction teams have been hard at work. They have assisted in renovating all of the skyboxes along the east and west sides of the stadium and added a loading dock. A commercial kitchen was added to assist the concessions and serve food for the skyboxes and premium spaces.
“We’ve also added an expanded North Concourse 2, with new restrooms and improved concessions. We actually have some walk-through markets there now, airport style – go in and grab your food and pay for it with self check out,” Ducote said.
By the next football season, Ducote said that the renovations of South Concourse 1 should complete. The plans are to create an expanded concourse to match West Concourse 1 through new and improved restrooms and concessions. The founder suites should also be finished by next season.
“For the average fan, the Concourse 1 South and Concourse 2 North improvements are going to make the most difference, because those concourses were old, very small, tight, not enough restrooms, not big enough concessions. So fans should really notice an improved game day experience in those areas,” Ducote said. “Certainly that’s going to affect more people than like the skybox or founder suites – which are great for the people using those spaces, but the bulk of the fans are not up there. Those [Concourse 1 and 2] are gonna be the ones that absolutely make the biggest difference on game day.”
From a logistics standpoint, this has been one of Ducote’s most challenging projects. He said his favorite part and the most challenging part of this project has been coordinating all of the different aspects of the construction around events and football. He is proud to watch the project get to the point of having football games in the stadium. For Ducote, it has been rewarding and exciting to figure out how to do multiple phases of work on a stadium that still has to play football.
“If you’d gone in there a month ahead of time, you’d never have thought they were going to be done. Our teams on that one really put in the hard work and had it ready for the first game. Of course, there’s still punch list items, small things to fix, but they were ready for football, for sure,” Ducote said.
To the fans, Ducote says to be ready for a completely different experience in Concourse 1 next season.
“You’re getting glimpses of it this season. You’ll see pieces of it being worked on, and I’m excited for it to be all complete for next season, and that’ll be a much better fan experience for anybody on the south side, which includes the student section,” Ducote said.
Ducote is also excited about the new student entrance, which opened this season. The new entrance is around the Gate 4 side and has a large area for students to queue up before the game. Once students scan their tickets, they are directed to a set of stairs that leads straight up to where the student section starts. Ducote is hopeful that this new entrance makes it easier for students to get in and out of the games.
In addition to these updates, there are plenty of behind the scenes improvements happening that most fans are not going to see.
“Like I said, there’s a new kitchen, there’s new utilities, we’re putting in new trash chutes. So little things that the average fan is never going to see that are still going to help the game day experience, to help the operations of the stadium,” Ducote said.
He explained that the project team has also focused on cosmetic updates for the stadium.
“You’ll see there’s more brick on the exterior now, there’s brick on some of the field level entrances to the stands. They have grid cladding now that used to be beige painted concrete. So we’re doing some small cosmetic things like that that make the whole overall stadium experience better,” Ducote said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into this that people aren’t going to see but has to be done to make it work as a full functioning stadium. That’s really what the project boils down to, is a better fan experience. And I think we’re achieving that.”