KU’s new football stadium has the only escalators in Lawrence — but not the first
Over the years, KU’s football program has had its ups and downs.
But with the sold-out debut Saturday of the new David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, that ride for fans becomes intentional and literal.
For when they walk into the shiny, glamorously made-over house of football to watch KU take on Fresno State, they will find a fan-friendly feature they’ve never seen in that stadium.
Escalators.
Anyone who has ridden an escalator in a mall or airport, at T-Mobile Center or Kansas City’s Union Station, might think, meh, big deal.
But these two escalators have been singled out in guided tours of the stadium this week.
They are worthy of note, for the city’s Chamber of Commerce verifies that the stadium’s escalators are the only “operating” escalators in all of Lawrence, home to more than 97,000 residents in Douglas County.
But ... they are not the first.
Stadium escalators becoming common in Big 12
Social media has been quick with the jabs.
Didn’t realize you guys were that behind the curve.
Effective for quick halftime exits when the hawks are down by a landslide.
If it’s the only escalator in all of Lawrence, KS, will fans know how it works?
Nearly half — at least seven — of the football stadiums in the Big 12 now have escalators moving fans from point A to point B. Several, like KU, have added them during renovations to improve both accessibility and the “fan experience.”
The new escalators at The Booth are located in the northwest corner of the stadium, according to the stadium’s fan guide.
One will move fans from the main concourse to the club level. The other provides service from the club level to the view level concourse.
They will operate on a schedule. Both move upward from the time the gates open until midway through the third quarter. Then they switch direction and move downward from the middle of the third quarter through postgame.
After a sneak peek of the stadium this week, one visitor noted that Lawrence, with its two new escalators, now has as many as the entire state of Wyoming.
They must have seen the map floating around online that pegs the Cowboy State as having the fewest escalators in the nation.
In that ranking, Kansas beats Wyoming.
There are 93 escalators in the Sunflower State reported to the state Fire Marshal’s office in Topeka, though there could be more if some are not registered with the state, a spokesman told The Star.
Some folks have heard that the stadium’s escalators are the first in Lawrence. But local residents know there used to be an escalator at the former Riverfront Mall on the banks of the Kansas River in downtown Lawrence. Details on whether it still stands inside the building are fuzzy.
One Lawrence man shared his Lawrence escalator memory a few years ago when someone broached the topic on a Facebook community page where members “share all things Lawrence,” including memories and giggles.
He recalled how one day years ago he was getting a haircut from Mike Amyx — barber, six-term Lawrence mayor and now a Kansas state representative — who was hustling to attend the “escalator dedication” at the Riverfront mall.
The man had just moved back to Lawrence after working nine years in South Florida and chuckled at the thought of a ceremony for an escalator, a charming reminder that he was home.
In that same Facebook discussion about escalators, Lawrence mom Mariah Sanford recalled that she didn’t realize how escalator-challenged her own kids were until they visited Kansas City’s Union Station and didn’t know how to ride the escalators there.
“They both looked like Buddy the Elf,” she wrote and included a photo from the movie “Elf” showing Buddy (Will Ferrell) sprawled on a department store escalator.
Sanford didn’t know KU’s new stadium has escalators until told by The Star on Wednesday.
“That is exciting,” she said.
She said her children, now grown, can ride escalators “expertly now.”
“My older son is in college in Seoul, South Korea now,” she said. “So he’s navigating escalators and even subways like he’s not even from a small town in Kansas.”
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