She resided on Union Bay looking out at Mount Rainier. She was aged, sagging and arthritic. Needing more than a facelift, she underwent a 20-month surgery that cost $261 million.
Husky Stadium is the face of University of Washington football and, in late 2008, it was scarred badly. Having just endured a no win-twelve loss season under recently-fired head coach Tyrone Willingham, the football program was losing on the field, was missing out on most highly-prized recruits.
The renovation — of the Stadium and the football program — was a complex algorithm of smart personnel changes, political resistance, a paradoxical economy, fiercely loyal Husky fans and planned facilities with bling. The UW's athletic department solved the equation by building an almost completely new stadium, the public reveal of which, on August 31, will feature the Huskies and the 19th-ranked Boise State Broncos.
