ASU aiming to make Sun Devil Stadium a year-round activities hub
Oct 21, 2017, 10:59 AM
(Facebook/Arizona State Sun Devils)
PHOENIX — A new initiative from Arizona State University aims to add year-round activities and events to Sun Devil Stadium, the home of the school’s football team.
ASU football uses the venue for its handful of annual home games, but as for the rest of the year, a fundraiser began last Saturday to turn the Tempe venue “into a year-round hub of activity the entire community can enjoy.”
“ASU’s 365 Community Union will be your place for cardio and concerts, festivals and farmers markets,” Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, vice president for cultural affairs at ASU, said in an article on the school’s website. “It will be a place for your morning jog and your morning joe. A hot spot for movies and meals as well as a place to showcase the leaders on the field and the leaders of tomorrow.”
As far as students are concerned, the 365 Community Union will feature space for classes, seminars, a new Pat Tillman Veterans Center, a sports institute, a studio for students at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and more.
There will also be chances for students to run “popup shops” for asipiring entrepreneurs, Jennings-Roggensack said.
Sun Devil Stadium opened in 1958 and has been the home to Sun Devil football and, for a time, the Arizona Cardinals. Jennings-Roggensack said sustainability is part of the reason why ASU is looking to broaden how the stadium is utilized.
“With a typical college stadium being utilized only 2 percent of the time, we knew we needed to flip the paradigm and move to a 98 percent solution,” she said. “Redefining Sun Devil Stadium as a university asset that becomes a cultural hub between campus and the surrounding communities is where we are heading.”