I'm Not Mad, I'm Just Disappointed

In 1997, less than a year into my Landscape Architecture career, I learned a valuable lesson. After graduating from Illinois with my Landscape Architecture degree in May of 1996, I spent seven months at one firm in downtown St. Louis and then moved to a different firm out in the suburbs. OK, fine, I didn't "move." I was laid off from my first job out of college. But, fortunately, I landed another job a week later.

It was about four months into that job when I learned the lesson. The firm I worked for was working on a hospital expansion project. They were going to build a new building where the parking lot was located and then they were going to build a new parking lot just north of that. One problem: there were two giant trees – both 100 years old at least – in the area where the new parking lot would be built.

Part of the city approval process involves saving a certain number of existing trees on a site. No municipality wants developers to come in, bulldoze every single tree on an entire site, and start over with bare dirt. So they required that an Arborist review all trees on site to identify any individual "substantial" trees as well as any woodlands that might need to be preserved. The Arborist's findings are then given to the Landscape Architect (hey, that's me) who develops a plan for saving a certain percentage of the woodlands on site as well as any "substantial" trees identified by the Arborist.

This, of course, makes the Landscape Architect (let's just use LA here) the bad guy. You're the "tree hugger." You go to the meeting, the client who wants hundreds of parking spaces, you say "you have to save these trees so subtract 35 parking spaces", and you're the bad guy. You're just enforcing the city ordinance but... you're the bad guy.

Back to the lesson I learned in the spring of 1997. There were two massive trees that needed to be saved. And that means no grading can take place in the dripline of those trees. With the site plan showing a lot of grading across the entire parking lot, this was going to seriously restrict available parking. But a plan was drawn to accommodate the trees and the city approved the project.

Then, one morning in April, after a thunderstorm rolled through the night before, my boss got a call. "Storm came through and blew over both trees last night. We had the contractor cut them up and remove them from the site so they're already gone. Please resubmit plans to the city showing the parking lot with the trees removed."

Must have been one hell of a storm. (It wasn't.)

Did I want to see the trees come down? No. Two great old oak trees. Did I think that they should remain because I'm against any tree ever being cut down and would prefer to chain myself to a tree trunk to stop the bulldozers? No. I'm just complying with the ordinance that says an Arborist-identified "significant tree" should be preserved in that spot. Did I realize then and there that anyone who wants to solve a tree debate can end the discussion with two minutes and a chainsaw? Absolutely.

Although the majority of my work in my "first career" was parks & recreation-based, I did work on a fair number of "draw up a plan to meet the city ordinance" projects. Most cities had ordinances to have a certain number of shade trees for every planned parking space, so yes, I spent a lot of time drawing islands in parking lots with trees. And then I spent a lot of time arguing with Architects and Lighting Designers about how "my" trees were blocking the views to their incredible designs.

I'm not exaggerating - I probably had that specific discussion 100+ times in my 24 years as an LA. Not only were they often oblivious to the city ordinance requirements, they had no sense for outdoor design. They didn't understand how trees could frame something. Soften something. Draw the eye towards their precious design, not block it. From developers to Architects, there was a never-ending stream of "tree in way - remove tree now." That's how they talk, you know.

I shouldn't paint with that broad of a brush. There were developers who got it. Look at every great office campus anywhere and you'll see that developers who understand outdoor spaces have been the most successful. Hell, drive through any built-15-years-ago McMansion neighborhood and you'll see that the developers who understood that planting street trees would eventually improve property values have made so much more money than "do people even want trees - the leaves are messy" short-sighted developers in love with barren McMansion sprawl.

It's one of those "why it's a 4-year degree" things for Landscape Architecture. Just like the six of us trusted the design of the fire truck graphics to a graphic designer, the developers of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles understood that the harshness of the architectural design (and the industrial site it was built on) had to be softened with landscape:

Speaking of softening a stadium with landscape... the pine trees at Memorial Stadium were removed in March. I tweeted about it at the time:

If you're wondering what it looked like before, I couldn't find a picture from the exact same spot. But I can give you some photos from various sources online.

Here's Google Street View:

And here's the 3D view from Google Maps. This image is from the winter so you can see the pine trees well. The deciduous trees along the street (with no leaves here) are still there, but the pine trees (evergreen) are gone:

And that's on both sides of the scoreboard. The other side is a bigger parking lot (for the Varsity Room where the athletes eat), and those pines are gone as well. And in that lot, there were also a few dead trees (deciduous trees) that were removed.

As a Landscape Architect, I'm upset. As an Illini football fan, I'm disappointed. I might not be a tree-hugger, but I do believe in trees. Especially old trees around my favorite stadium on earth. That's the part that has me so down about all of this. This stuff MATTERS to me, man.

When we're flying drones above the court during very quiet "these free throws could give us the lead at home with five seconds left against #1" moments, I lose my mind. When the wait to get into the Wyoming football game in 2022 was 30+ minutes despite a paid attendance of 37,800, I voice my displeasure. (To his credit, Josh Whitman responded to fans with an apology and then was personally out front greeting fans as they entered the next home game to make sure their experience was better.) The loyalty of the fans in the 2010's must be rewarded in the 2020's, and when I observe the focus seemingly shifting away from the fans, I'll write about it.

And here, I feel like the focus shifted away from the fans. It probably sounds silly to the person who made the decision to cut down the trees, but I've heard from so many fans since that one single tweet. I've received emails. I've received DM's. Just go look at the 38 comments on the linked tweet above to see the reaction. Those trees meant something to the fans – even if it's as simple as "I like the green backdrop when looking to the south" – and they were removed without, at least as far as I'm aware, telling the fans.

The question you've been asking as you're reading this: were they removed because the long-awaited horseshoe renovation is beginning? The answer is perhaps... complicated. I asked the DIA and here's the response I received:

[The trees were} removed because of a combination of factors, the trees on the southeast side were diseased, and to prepare for upcoming renovation work in those southwest (by the facilities office) and southeast (by the varsity room) lots. The same disease hit the trees north of Ubben last year; they were removed.

Let me go through that piece by piece.

I was familiar with the dead trees (I'm kind of obsessed with this stadium a little bit). On the "southeast side" mentioned there, some of the oak trees out by the street were diseased. You can see the dead branches and brown leaves on the trees by the fence in this Google Streetview screengrab:

As far as I know, none of the pines were diseased. Perhaps they were, but I looked through all Google Streetview images as well as my photos from inside the stadium and I can't see any dead or dying pines. That's not a requirement for identifying disease, of course, but for Pinus strobus (sorry, I needed to flex my genus-species chops a little bit), most disease appears with heavy needle drop.

But that's getting lost in the weeds here. For the pines, the statement says that they were removed for upcoming renovation work in those two parking lots. So that's what we'll focus on.

And I want to pause here and zoom out. Way out. Let's talk about the eventual horseshoe renovations.

Once the horseshoe is finally renovated, every one of those trees will come down. Even the oaks along Kirby Avenue. Remember this image from 2016 when the horseshoe renovations were proposed?

If we do that, every damn tree comes down. And I would celebrate it. I want My Favorite Stadium On Earth to be as big and as loud as possible. I'm sitting here saying "why'd we cut the trees down?" right now and if the renovations were announced tomorrow, I would be running to Kirby with my chainsaw to make room for the long-awaited horseshoe renovation, a renovation which will move the horseshoe seats 27 yards closer to the endzone (yes, 27 yards).

But that was canceled. The point behind the renovation shown there was building what was essentially the Smith Center underneath the horseshoe. All of the locker rooms and training rooms and offices and meeting rooms that are currently in the Smith Center would have been under those new stands right there. When the decision was made to build the football facility as a stand-alone building next to the indoor practice facility, everything in the rendering there was canceled. Eventually, there will be a horseshoe renovation. But the impetus behind that version right there – building a new football facility + moving the horseshoe closer to the field – was eliminated when the Smith Center was built to the east of the stadium instead.

When will a different horseshoe renovation take place? We don't know. There was absolutely no need for any stadium expansion between 2016 and 2024 because we went nearly eight seasons without a single sellout. But with two sellouts last year and several anticipated sellouts this fall, I would think a horseshoe renovation is at least on the radar again. Once we hear that it's being preliminarily designed it will be at least 3-4 years before construction is complete, however (the first step is always renderings followed by years of fundraising), so it's still a ways off.

Which means that my complaint here is very specific. What are these renovations in those two parking lots that necessitated the need to remove every backdrop pine tree? The pine trees were right up against the brick wall of the stadium...

...so what was it that necessitated their removal? This parking lot expansion couldn't be designed in a way to stay 10 feet away from the brick wall? They really had to come down now?

I guess what I'm really saying here is that I wish there had been some kind of notification. I wish I would have heard "the trees framing the horseshoe need to be removed due to parking lot expansion" before it happened instead of me having to contact the DIA for a statement. I wish that there was someone, somewhere who raised their hand in some meeting and said "this might sound silly but what if the fans love the green backdrop from inside the stadium?"

So this is me voicing my concern even though the trees have already been turned into sawdust. And please note: this issue is a perfect storm for me. The guy who sat through three dozen meetings where the lighting designer cried "with all of those trees you won't be able to see my exterior lights!" is faced with his favorite stadium removing backdrop trees he loved.

And it better not be because of the lights.

I'll just say it. My fear here is this. Because the Assembly Hall now looks like this at night...

...orange lights were recently added under the horseshoe so that both sides of Kirby would match:

And it wasn't long after noticing the new orange lights that I noticed the trees came down. So you can tell where I'm going here. I don't need to say it, do I? I do? I need to say it? Fine, I'll say it.

The guy who sat through dozens of meetings defending trees as backdrops and edge-softeners is very concerned that someone in some meeting somewhere said "these trees block our lights can someone cut them down?" and they were cut down without anyone (OK, me) having the ability to hug them. And now we'll have 10 seasons (or 30?) before the actual horseshoe renovations where they could have remained in their backdropping and edge-softening locations. And yes, they could have been saved while doing whatever parking lot expansion is planned. If anyone has more "find a solution to save the existing trees behind the curb that the Civil Engineer is trying to remove" experience than me, come at me, bro.

People just love cutting down trees, man. I've seen it for three decades. I can't do my own taxes and I'm only 60% sure I know how gravity works but as an expert on "should these trees be cut down?" meetings, I can predict every argument that will be presented. And I fear that someone's "you can see the lights better if we just cut them down" argument met zero resistance.

I guess I am a tree hugger.

Look, it's not really that big of a deal. They were all coming down eventually. Like I said in the title, I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. I'm not going to call my congresswoman and complain. I don't expect this issue to bring about some big "Georgia is replacing their historic hedges" reaction. As I said above, if the horseshoe renovation were to be announced tomorrow, I'd flip my "save the trees" sign around and it would read "cut down the trees and start construction immediately" on the other side.

I simply don't like seeing trees that could have likely remained for 5-10-15 more years cut down for a small parking lot expansion. Mine is essentially a "paved paradise and put up a parking lot" reaction. It's such a damn permanent decision. Those trees have been there at least 40 years, and with one decision and the quick stroke of a chain saw, they're gone. Replace them? I'd be dead and gone by the time any replacement pines grew above the height of the top row of the horseshoe again.

I know I'm probably on an island here. As far as "Landscape Architect turned Illini blogger" goes, I'm pretty sure I'm one of one. This is just the intersection of two passions of mine so feel free to chalk me up to whatever you usually chalk me up to.

But I drive by that beautiful stadium all the time. And I've been in the stands five or six times in the last month for open football practices. And every single time I look over, I see this, and I'm sad:

That's actually the day they were coming down. As you can see, there are two pine trees left in the southeast corner. Those are gone now, so there's nothing across the entire horseshoe besides the oak trees out at the curb.

So when you're in the corner of the horseshoe now and you look up, all you see is blue sky:

And I don't particularly care for the view from Kirby either:

I know, I know. "Nobody really cares, Robert - move on." "They were coming down soon anyway because renovations likely happen soon." "Why don't you wait to see what the parking lot renovations will be before claiming the trees could have been saved?" All fair. All fair.

I just wish there was someone sitting in the "you know, the fans might care about this" chair when the meetings took place. Any time I complain in this space over the last 15 years it's usually about something like this. Not just the Wyoming game ticket snafu or the drone at the Tennessee game but the expansion of permanent University tents in Lot 31 taking up 50+ tailgating spots that used to belong to fans and other "this is a business first" decisions. I just want to raise my hand and speak for the fans in those moments. I want everyone making those decisions to understand that while it's their job, it's our passion. And we're passionate about a lot of things they might not think to consider.

Like trees.