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Construction
Construction of Caesars Superdome
domed stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
- 1975
- North America
Construction
domed stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Caesars Superdome commonly known as the Superdome, is an indoor stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. It has served as the home venue of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL) since its opening in 1975.
Plans to build the Superdome were drawn up in 1967 by the New Orleans modernist architectural firm of Curtis and Davis and the building opened as the Louisiana Superdome in 1975. Its steel frame covers a 13-acre (5.3 ha) expanse and the 273-foot (83 m) dome is made of a lamellar multi-ringed frame and has a diameter of 680 feet (207 m), making it the largest fixed domed structure in the world.
The Superdome has hosted eight Super Bowls (the most of any stadium as of 2025's Super Bowl LIX), and six NCAA championships in men's college basketball. In college football, the Sugar Bowl has been played at the Superdome since 1975, which is one of the "New Year's Six" bowl games of the College Football Playoff and the 2020 National Championship. It also traditionally hosts the Bayou Classic, a rivalry game played between the historically black universities Southern University and Grambling State University. The Superdome was also the long-time home of the Tulane Green Wave football team of Tulane University until 2014 when they returned to Yulman Stadium on their campus, and was the home venue of the New Orleans Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1975 until 1979.
In 2005, the Superdome housed thousands of people seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina. The building suffered extensive damage as a result of the storm, and was closed for more than a year afterward. The building was repaired and reopened in time for the Saints' 2006 home opener on September 25.
Local businessman David Dixon (who later founded the United States Football League in the 1980s) conceived the Superdome while lobbying the NFL to award a franchise to New Orleans. After hosting several exhibition games at Tulane Stadium during typical New Orleans summer thunderstorms, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle told Dixon the NFL would never expand into New Orleans without a domed stadium. Dixon then won the support of the governor of Louisiana, John McKeithen. When they toured the Astrodome in Houston, Texas in 1966, McKeithen said, "I want one of these, only bigger". Bonds were passed for construction of the Superdome on November 8, 1966, seven days after commissioner Pete Rozelle awarded New Orleans the 25th professional football franchise.
The stadium was conceptualized as a multifunctional stadium for football, baseball, and basketball—with movable field level stands arranged specifically for each sport and areas with dirt (for the bases and pitcher's mound) covered with metal plates on the stadium floor (covered by artificial turf during football games)—and there are also meeting rooms that could be rented for many different purposes. Dixon imagined staging side-by-side high school football games and suggested the synthetic surface be white. Blount International of Montgomery, Alabama, was chosen to build the stadium.
During construction, various individuals developed eccentric models of the structure: one of sugar, another of pennies. The so-called "penny model" traveled to the Philadelphia Bicentennial '76 exhibition. New Orleanian Norman J. Kientz built the model with 2,697 pennies and donated it to the Superdome Board of Commissioners in April 1974.
It was hoped the stadium would be ready for the 1972 NFL season, and the final cost would come to $46 million. Instead, due to political delays, construction started on August 11, 1971, and finished in August 1975, seven months after Super Bowl IX was scheduled to be played in the stadium. The Super Bowl was played for a third time at Tulane Stadium in January 1975, in cold and rainy conditions. Factoring in inflation, construction delays, and increased transportation costs caused by the 1973 oil crisis, the final price tag skyrocketed to $165 million. Along with the state police, Elward Thomas Brady, Jr., a state representative from Terrebonne Parish conducted an investigation into possible financial irregularities, but the Superdome went forward despite the obstacles.
The New Orleans Saints moved into the Superdome in 1975; the home opener on September 28 was a 21–0 shutout loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the first regular-season game in the facility. Tulane Stadium, the original home of the Saints, was condemned for destruction on the day the Superdome opened.
The first Super Bowl played in the stadium was Super Bowl XII in January 1978, the first in prime time.
The original artificial turf playing surface in the Superdome was produced and developed by Monsanto (which made the first artificial playing surface for sports, AstroTurf) specifically for the Superdome, and was named "Mardi Grass".
The Superdome replaced the first generation "Mardi Grass" surface with the next-generation infilled FieldTurf midway through the 2003 season, on November 16.
The Superdome was used as a "shelter of last resort" for those in New Orleans unable to evacuate from Hurricane Katrina when it struck on August 29, 2005. During the storm, a large section of the outer covering was peeled off by high winds. The photos of the damage, in which the concrete underneath was exposed, quickly became an iconic image of Hurricane Katrina. Following the evacuation, the dome remained closed until September 25, 2006.
By August 31, there had been three deaths in the Superdome: two elderly medical patients and a man who was believed to have committed suicide by jumping from the upper-level seats. There were also unconfirmed reports of rape, vandalism, violent assaults, crack dealing and drug abuse, and gang activity inside the Superdome. After a National Guardsman was attacked and shot in the dark by an assailant, the National Guard inside the Superdome used barbed wire barricades to separate themselves from the other people in the dome. On September 11, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass reported there were "no confirmed reports of any type of sexual assault."
United States Navy sniper Chris Kyle claimed that during the hurricane, he and another sniper climbed to the top of the dome and killed 30 armed looters during the chaos following the event. This claim has never been independently verified, and there is no evidence of dozens of people being slain by a sniper, with commentators noting that it was unlikely 30 people could have been killed without anyone noticing it or reporting it to the media or the police. Kyle's story had been reported in a number of publications, including the New Yorker, with Kyle relating the story to other military personnel.
The Superdome cost $185 million to repair and refurbish. To repair the Superdome, FEMA put up $115 million, the state spent $13 million, the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District refinanced a bond package to secure $41 million and the NFL contributed $15 million.
After being damaged from the flooding disaster, a new Sportexe Momentum Turf surface was installed for the 2006 season.
During Super Bowl XL on February 5, 2006, the NFL announced that the Saints would play their home opener on September 24, 2006 in the Superdome against the Atlanta Falcons. The game was later moved to September 25.
The reopening of the dome was celebrated with festivities including a free outdoor concert by the Goo Goo Dolls before fans were allowed in; a pre-game performance by U2 and Green Day performing a cover of the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming", and a coin toss conducted by then-President George W. Bush. In front of ESPN's largest-ever audience at that time, the Saints won the game 23–3 with 70,003 in attendance, and went on to a successful season, reaching their first ever NFC Championship Game.
In 2008, new windows were installed to bring natural light into the building. Later that year, the roof-facing of the Superdome was also remodeled, restoring the roof with a solid white hue. Between 2009 and 2010, the entire outer layer of the stadium, more than 400,000 square feet (37,000 m2) of aluminum siding, was replaced with new aluminum panels and insulation, returning the building to its original champagne bronze colored exterior. An innovative barrier system for drainage was also added, allowing the dome to resemble its original facade.
In addition, escalators were added to the outside of the club rooms. Each suite includes modernized rooms with raised ceilings, leather sofas, and flat-screen TVs, as well as glass brushed aluminum and wood-grain furnishings. A new $600,000 point-of-sale system was also installed, allowing fans to purchase concessions with credit cards throughout the stadium for the first time.
During the summer of 2010, the Superdome installed 111,831 square feet (10,389.4 m2) of the UBU Speed S5-M synthetic turf system, an Act Global brand. In 2017 Act Global installed a new turf in time for the NFL season. For the 2018, 2019, and 2020 NFL seasons, Turf Nation Inc located in Dalton, Georgia, have supplied the synthetic turf system for the Superdome. The Superdome has, as of 2017, the largest continuous synthetic turf system in the NFL.
Beginning in 2011, demolition and new construction began to the lower bowl of the stadium, reconfiguring it to increase seating by 3,500, widening the plaza concourse, building two bunker club lounges and adding additional concession stands. Crews tore down the temporary stairs that led from Champions Square to the Dome, and replaced them with permanent steps. Installation of express elevators that take coaches and media from the ground level of the stadium to the press box were also completed. New 7,500-square-foot (700 m2) bunker lounges on each side of the stadium were built. The lounges are equipped with flat-screen TVs, granite counter tops and full-service bars. These state-of-the-art lounges can serve 4,500 fans, whose old plaza seats were upgraded to premium tickets, giving those fans leather chairs with cup-holders. The plaza level was extended, closing in space between the concourse and plaza seating, adding new restrooms and concession areas. The renovations also ended the stadium's ability to convert to a baseball configuration. The renovations were completed in late June 2011 in time for the Essence Music Festival.
Naming rights to the Superdome were sold for the first time in 2011 to automaker Mercedes-Benz, renaming the facility Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Mercedes-Benz did not renew the contract, and in July 2021 it was announced that the naming rights would be sold to Caesars Entertainment, under which it was renamed Caesars Superdome.
On July 27, 2012, a statue was unveiled at a plaza next to the Superdome. The work, titled Rebirth, depicts one of the most famous plays in Saints history—Steve Gleason's block of a Michael Koenen punt that the Saints recovered for a touchdown early in the first quarter of the team's first post-Katrina game in the Superdome.
The Superdome hosted the Super Bowl XLVII football game on February 3, 2013. A partial power failure halted game play for about 34 minutes in the third quarter between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. It caused CBS, who was broadcasting the game, to lose some of its cameras as well as voiceovers by commentators Jim Nantz and Phil Simms. At no point did the game go off the air, though the game had no audio for about two minutes. While the lights were coming back on, sideline reporter Steve Tasker reported on the outage as a breaking news situation until power was restored enough for play to continue.
On February 8, 2013, it was reported that a relay device intended to prevent an electrical overload had caused the failure. The device was located in an electrical vault owned and operated by Entergy, the electrical utility for the New Orleans area. That vault is approximately one-quarter mile (0.40 km) away from the Superdome. A subsequent report from an independent auditor confirmed the relay device as the cause. The Superdome's own power system was never compromised.
During the 2016 off-season, the smaller videoboards formerly located along the end zone walls above the upper seating bowl were replaced with two large Panasonic HD LED displays that stretch 330 feet (100 m) wide and 35 feet (11 m) tall that are much easier to see throughout the bowl. Other upgrades included a complete upgrade to the Superdome's interior floodlighting system to an efficient LED system with programmable coloring, light show effects, and instant on-off; in normal mode the stadium will have a more vibrant and naturally pleasing system resembling natural daylight.
In November 2019, phase one plans were approved by the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, commonly known as the Superdome Commission, for a $450 million renovation. The renovation, designed by Trahan Architects (founded by Victor F. "Trey" Trahan III, FAIA), included atriums that replaced the ramp system, improved concourses, and field-level end zone boxes. The first phase of work began January 2020 and included installing alternative exits and constructing a large kitchen and food-service area. The renovations were completed over multiple phases in time for the stadium to host Super Bowl LIX in early 2025.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Caesars Superdome”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.