Why is it that the hospital doesnt do like most and big UP, make more use of the space it is on, versus expanding like a giant puddle.
An astute observation, and a very good question. One already being answered. The good news for Hawkeye football fans is that the one billion dollar plus renovations & expansion of UIHC now in process is more a matter of building upward rather than outward. The bad news (if better health care can be thought of as a negative) for fans is that the likely accelerated pace of UIHC's growth can only result in the widening of the puddle.
Key fact, oten overlooked or unknown to fans, is that , UIHC owns the land that the bubble is on, the baseball field--AND Kinnick. The land is on long-term indefinite lease for the athletic facilities.
A decade ago when the discussions began about providing a more suitable football stadium--Kinnick was deteriorating, had problems of inadequate facilities, was no longer one of the better stadia in the Big Ten, with upgrading at Camp Randall, Happy Valley, Ohio State--attention first centered upon a new stadium to be constructed at another site (the site getting the most attention was on the land already controlled by the athletic department north of Melrose & west of Mormon Trek, adjacent to where the new soccer field, sports museum, etc have been built). No less than seven different sets of architectural preliminary plans & drawings were created: the U architectural office still has them, at least at last report.
They settled ultimately on a decision to postpone the building of a new, larger (100,000 capacity) stadium until sometime in the 2020s or later.
A number of reasons seem to have been behind this choice: some doubt about how soon there would be an effective demand for a much larger stadium (this was before Ferentz made the 2002 breakthrough); there was concern about raising the estimated quarter-billion dollar cost solely from private contributions; and the fact that UIHC was not considering expansion plans that would require taking over the land being used for athletics. The current one billion dollar plus, 8-year duration scheduled renovations & upgrading of UIHC had not yet been finalized but the UIHC administration knew that it was going to be a matter of drastically remodeling much of the exising plant, including the four existing pavillions, Boyd Tower, other facilities becoming obsolescent or inadequate--and beyond that UIHC would be building up more than out...meaning that forcing immediate changes upon the athletic dept would not occur for a long time, maybe twenty years or longer.
But much has changed in the past decade--politically (this week's passage of far-reaching health care "reform" probably is only the first step in the ambitious plans to implement the Obama Administration's high priority for expansion of federal spending on medical research & treatment), dramatic steps forward in medical knowledge and advancements in regard to major diseases such as cancer, diabetes, etc. Iowa's role in the Genome Project, and its huge investment in cancer research & treatment, etc have brought UIHC lucrative patents, intensified government & foundation grants, contracts, other funding. The current renovations & upgrading expand the UIHC plant & scale of operations to an anticipated increase of 6,000 or more additional staff.
Merely my own idiosyncratic guess, but all these factors may complicate the upgrading of football practice & support facilities--particularly in regard to the site. The prospect of rapid, large growth of UIHC in the coming decade or two might very easily cause UIHC to be the reluctant landlord evicting the athletic dept from some or all of the leased land. And in that case Barta, et al may have to build the new facilities out beyond Mormon Trek, accept the years of inconvenience and logistical problems that would follow. But there may be no alternative: there would be other intransigent problems with trying to move across Melrose & displace the private home-owners there.
