Peterson Events Center (the Pitt basketball arena) and student housing was built on the site of Pitt Stadium. The Pitt campus is in Oakland, one of the largest neighborhoods in Pittsburgh - or in Pennsylvania, for that matter. It's on the side and top of a hill. Thus, the name of the Pitt website, Cardiac Hill.

The Pitt campus is basically hemmed in by residential and business communities. To build something generally requires tearing something else down. And even if you find space for a stadium, the parking situation would be horrible. It always was in the old days and there is no reason to believe that would change.

The old Pitt Stadium was a classic dump, built into a little hollow in the hillside. It was probably magnificent in its early days. I saw West Virginia play the Panthers there in the mid-1990s. Parking was a nightmare and I distinctly recall the hike up the hill to the field.

Even in Pitt's best years, the only games that filled Pitt Stadium (which had a capacity in its last years of around 60,000) were games against WVU, Penn State and Notre Dame; i.e., the games in which at least 15,000 of the fans were there to watch the opponent.

Pitt does not even practice on campus. The Panthers practice on the city's South Side. There is no doubt that playing at Heinz Field has proven to be a drawback for Pitt, but I do not see how Pitt can practically or economically change the situation. Pitt felt that building a new arena to replace old Fitzgerald Fieldhouse, along with new student housing, was a higher and better use of the Pitt Stadium property. The only green space in the immediate vicinity of the Pitt campus is Schenley Park, and the city has made considerable efforts to enhance that park over the past decade. It's Pittsburgh's version of Central Park, and no one is going to build a stadium there.

So, Pitt's choice is to stick with Heinz Field or build a facility that most likely would still be remote from campus. That's not a good choice, but Heinz is the better of the two.