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Tulane ready to move ahead with on-campus football stadium

The final obstacle before pulling permits for construction on Tulane's 30,000-capacity on-campus football stadium plans is cleared. The City of New Orleans posted an agreement with Tulane in an open letter to neighbors on its website Friday evening.

The agreement ends an eight-month back-and-forth process between concerned community members, the university and the New Orleans city officials regarding the stadium in Uptown's already tight quarters. City spokesman Ryan Berni emailed Friday evening that Tulane has not been granted any construction permits yet.

But those should be coming now that the agreement is in place for the $55 million project that will be called Yulman Stadium. One source said earlier this week that the proposed January ground-breaking was still on track.

Tulane spokesman Debbie Grant said neither university president Scott Cowen nor athletic director Rick Dickson were ready to comment on the news.

It has been a contentious preceding eight months, however.

Some neighbors expressed profound concern over the proposed stadium’s use, it’s size and proximity to Audubon Blvd. residents, parking and traffic overflow for fans going to the stadium and light and noise pollution worries.

The City Council even agreed to consider a Interim Zoning District – blocking the university from constructing large facilites on campuses Tulane's section of town. But the city reversed course on that, led by Mayor Mitch Landrieu's support for the stadium project, and chose an alternate path of working toward an agreement with the community on the stadium that would grant concessions to all parties.

"The devil is always in the details," Councilwoman Susan Guidry, who proposed the IZD initially, told the Times-Picayune/NOLA.com in July. "We are committed to remain committed to the neighborhood and to the process."

The details did take time.

Tulane agreed to several structural alterations to its original plans and hammered out specifics on parking, traffic and litter issues in the agreement.

Stadium usage elicited some of the greatest outcry from neighbors. Tulane agreed not to host rock, country, or rap concerts. It also will not host more than one high school game a calendar week -- two significant neighbor concerns over the facility's usage.

The stadium's wall size also drew fire.

In the agreement, Tulane said it will lower the wall closest to residents from 48 feet to 36. It has promised to landscape and build another wall to buffer the stadium from its Audubon Blvd. neighbors.

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Parking sure is going to be very interesting... and what of the tailgating space?