Capital Journal

Million Dollar Football Stadium To Be Erected At University Of California

Berkeley, Cal., Oct. 5.—Providing for a double-deck arrangement that will project the spectators toward the playing field much as spectators in a theatre are projected toward the stage, California's Memorial Stadium, to be built adjoining the state university campus at Berkeley will offer something distinctly different in stadium construction, according to plans just announced. The double-deck arrangement was followed in building the stands at the Polo Grounds in New York, but the great university stadiums of the country, notably the Harvard stadium planned by the University of Illinois, are planned on a different basis, as is the Yale bowl.

The California stadium to be erected during 1921-22, as a memorial to all citizens of the state who lost their lives during the great War, will further carry out the idea of theatre construction by being closed at both ends.

It will be elliptical in form and will have a seating capacity of 60,000 allowing five feet for each spectator. The stadium will be within scarcely more than a stone's throw from the fine group of buildings constructed during the last six years on the campus, and an architectural problem already solved is that of planning it so that it will fit harmoniously into the general architectural scheme. To this end the stadium will be given an architectural beauty, with an attractiveness of line and form that will result from the inclusion of balconies, alcoves and winding stairways.

The stadium itself will cost $900,000, while land will have to be purchased at an additional cost.

To raise this sum a unique financial plan has been evolved. Twenty thousand seats over a ten year period will be sold in units of two seats each. A payment of $100 will secure for the subscriber two $5 seats at the California-Stanford big game each year for ten years.

The subscriber likewise will be given an option on the two seats if at any time his script will have been expended. The subscriber's name on a brass plate will be sunk prominently into the concrete of his seats.

California's stadium is to be one unit of a large area and adjoining the campus that will be devoted to athletic, recreational and military activities. The area will include a huge memorial gateway a memorial field, a gymnasium and an armory.