SDSU unveils watercolors, price tag for proposed football stadium

Yesterday’s rollout of the proposed San Diego State Mission Valley Campus was only day one of Capital One Renderings Week!

Today it was Aztec Athletics’ turn to show off the design of the SDSU football stadium, and they were definitely not screwing around. The university put together a big to-do down on the field at SDCCU Stadium with huge printed renderings, a video presentation on a screen that was probably only a few inches smaller than the SDCCU jumbotron and athletic director J.D. Wicker striding around the stage in a black fleece like he was introducing a new smart phone with no headphone jack.

Take it away, J.D.!

The big newsy news of the day is that Wicker pinned the cost of the new Populous-designed palace a cool $100 million higher than he had hinted at previously.

A couple of thoughts on that:

1. Spending $150 million for a stadium that was anything more than an aluminum erector set was never realistic. SDSU football is not a minor league soccer team named after a stupid Anchorman quote.
2. If $250 million seems like a heavy fundraising lift for SDSU (and it is), I’ve got to ask … have you been on the SDSU campus lately? The new student union is a gleaming domed palace, a stunning new engineering building is almost done, former rumored insane asylum Zura Hall is a resort with a rooftop grotto and once-crumbling Storm and Nasatir Halls are now LEED-certified marvels. My alma mater may have botched the politics of this thing so far, but capital projects? SDSU can do those. I’m not saying the funding here is a slam dunk, but don’t be so quick to dismiss it, either.

Anyway, today was not about the nitty gritty of getting the project done. It was about a new batch of renderings to throw on the enormous pile imagining the possibility of the new stadium. So let’s take a look at what Wicker and Populous have dreamed up!

What’s up with the fireworks display while the Aztecs are trying to work in the damn red zone?

WATCH THE GAME IDIOTS.

Why … why does the stadium have a roof in this one and not the others?

More pre-snap fireworks???

I am really not sold on this one, honestly. No imagination.

OK, jokes aside, it’s a really cool design with great sightlines. I would gladly purchase a ticket and sit in such a stadium to observe a game of collegiate foot-ball.

The only real nitpick I have at this point are the terrible people they have chosen to appear in these pictures. There is no skateboard kid. No bros holding scarves. Let’s take a quick look at the horrible rogues’ gallery befouling this beautiful stadium:

Why are you posing? Get off Instagram and live your life, people!

This is definitely a drug deal going down.

Nice of George Seifert to come all the way from 1992 to check out the Aztecs game.

Cargo shorts and white New Balances? I don’t know this lady, but I’m certain she can do a lot better.

Is this really how you see us, Populous? Build the stadium, fine. But keep these people out.