As construction crews work to finish the new football and track and field stadium at Proviso East High School in Maywood, architects with Perkins and Will have been providing some previews into the finished product during recent Facilities Committee meetings. 

Several months after demolition of the old stadium started back in February, the mainstays of the new and improved stadium have taken shape. 

During a Facilities Committee meeting on July 27, Perkins and Will architects Michael Dolter and Carl Giometti described the design elements of the grandstand that’s currently going up on the west side of the stadium. 

They presented photos of finished stadium grandstands of high schools in Michigan and Wisconsin that were similar to the one going up at East. 

For instance, there will be a three-room press box with home and visitor rooms on opposite ends and a media and operations room in the middle. People will also be able to occupy the roof of the press box for activities such as filming athletes on the field. 

In addition, the grandstand bleachers will be handicapped accessible, with ample room for wheelchairs. 

“The Proviso East grandstand will be dressed in blue,” said Giometti. “There will be no doubt whose grandstand it is once it’s installed. So, it should be a pretty strong identifier for the school.”

The architects also showed images of how the scoreboard might look. One upgraded alternative to the scoreboard that was originally planned features a “lighted truss element” on top of the traditional scoreboard. The upgraded board would involve an increased cost of about $28,000. 

Other areas that involved possible cost increases above what was originally budgeted for the roughly $7.4 million stadium project are equipment upgrades recommended by the school’s athletic staff that, if implemented, would allow Proviso East to host NCAA and USA Track and Field events. 

The cost and schedule impacts of those changes were not discussed in detail during the June 1 meeting, but Dolter and Giometti said that they would be minimal to moderate. 

The stadium is scheduled to be completed by October.