The tailgate migration

Tailgating in the parking lots surrounding Husky Stadium for football games will be drastically different next year. For non-donors, though, it's going to be nonexistent. Construction on a new Sound Transit station will begin in the E-11 and E-12 parking lots immediately following the UW game against California on Saturday, and the footprint left by the digging - a 6-acre area roughly the size of Husky Stadium that will wipe out 600 parking stalls by June - will force some Tyee members who tailgate in the E-11 and E-12 parking lots into the E-1 lot bordered by Montlake Boulevard and the IMA. And that means that the E-1 lot will be exclusively reserved for Tyee club members, forcing all other ticket holders, students and single-game ticket buyers to search for other tailgating alternatives on campus. "There's kind of a math problem here," said Chip Lydum, the UW associate athletic director for operations and capital projects. "We start losing space, and people have to be relocated." Lydum said that during the construction, which won't be completed until 2016, there would be no public pay lots for UW football games, and that parking spots in the E-12 and E-1 lots will be assigned to Tyee members using a priority points system. The athletic department is doing what it can to help fans understand the situation, foot-canvassing at the Apple Cup and handing out fliers with information regarding the changes that are being implemented. Lydum said they've struggled against "a lot of misinformation, or people just don't know it's coming. We're trying to say, 'Look, it's real, and it's big, and it's here.'" According to a projection on the athletic department's official Web site, only Tyee members ranked in the top 550 in priority points will have spaces in E-12. It's projected that only members in the top 5,000 will have a chance at a spot in E-1. But once the donors with priority are taken care of, the question still remains as to where they're going to put everybody else. Jennifer Cohen, the UW's senior associate athletic director for advancement, said that other parking lots on campus proper such as Padelford, the Central Plaza Garage and the W-26 lots are all possibilities for displaced tailgaters. "For our fans, we really haven't reallocated parking here for as long as anyone that's worked here can remember, so just that change in and of itself is pretty significant," Cohen said. "However, there's ways to park more efficiently so we can look at a really great, quality tailgating experience for folks in some lots on campus that we haven't had before that we've been able to capture." While there's probably enough real estate in other parking lots on campus to accommodate anyone wanting to tailgate, the atmosphere away from the stadium would likely be considerably different, said UW graduate Alicia Miller. "Tailgating has been a huge part of my Husky football experience, and part of what makes Husky Stadium so unique is that it is consolidated into one huge mass of rowdy football fans," Miller said. "We've tailgated at other Pac-10 schools, and it's not nearly as lively when all the tailgates are sectioned off into different areas of campus." That's part of the reason the UW implemented The Zone this year, a pregame gathering place with food, drinks and big-screen televisions, located on the defensive practice field beyond the east end of Husky Stadium. That's one option for fans who will no longer be able to tailgate in E-1. "We started The Zone a year early, and one of the reasons was we wanted to create some tailgate opportunities for people should they need that choice," Cohen said. "We are trying to get creative and see if we can find all parking alternatives on campus. There's a lot of real estate out there. We're kind of working with the parking lots at this moment." Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at news@dailyuw.com.

The tailgate migration

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