When Derry Area High School football fans arrive for their team’s home games this fall, school officials hope to welcome them with an upgraded stadium entrance.

The school board this week voted to seek bids for the revamped main entry, which is intended to provide a better experience for those attending events at Trojan Stadium and for those manning the admission booths.

As designed by architectural consultant SHP, the new entrance will be in the same location as the existing one but will be aligned on a different angle.

“It’s really about realignment and reorientation of the entry,” SHP’s Josh Predovich said during a recent presentation to the school board. He noted patrons who pass through the current entrance are “sort of facing toward the visitors’ bleachers. We want to shift that more toward the goal post and the scoreboard, to take advantage of the natural view we have of the stadium.”

According to Predovich, the new entrance will include a pair of freestanding brick booths positioned on either side of a tall arched gateway — compared to the existing booths, which share a common overhanging roof.

Each booth will be capable of housing two admission workers — allowing for up to four lines of entering patrons —and will be accessible for those in wheelchairs.

The current booths are not as large and allow for just two ticket lines.

The new booths will have compact HVAC units, something that now is lacking.

“We’re creating a little plaza outside the entry itself, so when we get that stack-up when everybody is coming for Friday night football games, there will be places for people to sort of queue,” Predovich said. “I think it’s going to allow you to control that better on a Friday night.”

A triangular parking lot near the entrance will be reconfigured.

The cost of the project, estimated at $350,000, will be covered by private donations to the nonprofit Derry Area School District Foundation, according to superintendent Greg Ferencak.

He said the project is being overseen by the foundation’s Four A’s Committee, which matches private funding with capital improvements meant to advance academics, agriculture, the arts or athletics at the district.

“We identified it as a focal point because it’s an area where a lot of school community members go, and visiting school communities as well,” Ferencak said of the stadium. “We want to bring it up to the standards of today’s environment.”

The new main entrance is the first of potential improvements district officials are contemplating at the stadium. Updating the concession stand and an auxiliary entrance are among other longer-term possibilities.

“We’ll eventually get to other areas, but you have to start somewhere,” Ferencak said.

Derry Area also is seeking bids to resurface its running track and tennis courts, which last received attention a decade ago. That work will be funded through the district’s regular capital budget.

The district budgeted $200,000 for the work on the track and $60,000 for the tennis courts, according to business administrator and board secretary Scott Chappell.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)