Rose Bowl Renovation and Expansion, Pasadena, CA

Built in the 1920s and listed as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in the National Register of Historic Places, the Rose Bowl Stadium is home to UCLA’s collegiate football team and five NFL Super Bowl games as well as various public events throughout the year.

The improvements to the stadium for “The Next 100 Years” will make remarkable improvements to the fan experience while maintaining the Rose Bowl’s iconic and historic status: new press box, less cluttered stadium rim, new video board, wider tunnels, added aisles, elliptical field, restoration of historic field hedge, added concessions and added restrooms. The project had multiple prime firms working on the stadium due to the tremendous amount of work to do in such a small amount of time. Syska Hennessy Group was retained to provide MEP, fire protection and architectural lighting-design services for the stadium, locker rooms, media room and multi-purpose conference space.

One of our key challenges was preserving the historic character of the building while bringing it into a modern, state-of-the-art venue, complicated by the project schedule because of limited construction between football seasons. Complying with the conservation codes required careful planning to conserve original design elements of the facility.

Our team provided lighting and IT design services to address the media center’s broadcast requirements for pre-game, half-time and post-game interviews. Our expertise in sports and historic design added to the successful completion of this project.

The phased approach and tight schedule meant our engineers worked around the major football tenants as well as the monthly flea market and various other scheduled events. This involved a $182.7 million multi-phase approach, including construction activity that took place over five years. The various bid packages needed to seamlessly work among one another. Syska coordinated, defined and executed the project’s master plan, which defined project phasing and sequencing of construction scope. The Syska team managed all MEP, IT, security and vertical transportation design services.

The successful renovation and expansion brings the nearly 100-year-old historic stadium into the 21st century.