Tunnel Serves as Safe, Specially Lit Gateway to High School’s Football Stadium

The gameday experience begins once fans park their cars at Southeast Polk High School in Pleasant Hill, Iowa, particularly since the 2023 opening of a $22 million, 6,200-seat stadium for the now four-time defending Class 5A state champion Rams. The 400-foot trek from the closest parking space in the school lot to the entry plaza at SEP Stadium takes fans underneath a two-lane thoroughfare via a tunnel, which opens to the stadium’s impressive facade, complete with a realistic ram statue. 

To help elevate the pregame anticipation, even as pedestrians descend into and through the tunnel excavated specifically for their safety, architects from RDG Planning & Design in nearby Des Moines added LED lighting with programmable color and strobe effects controlled from inside the stadium. Even the undersides of stair rails feature elegant LED accent lights. 

“We wanted to utilize existing parking at the high school, but we wanted to be able to get spectators over to the stadium safely, so we integrated that tunnel under a busy roadway between the high school and where the new stadium lives,” says project manager Jason Blome, a landscape architect at RDG, adding that the tunnel was “very intentionally located” and accommodates at least 90% of all gameday foot traffic. “The nice thing about it is it sets a cool first impression of the stadium. You experience the specialty lighting, and then the tunnel frames up quite well the entry plaza and the ram statue that’s right next to the ticketing and main gates. It creates an Instagram moment, much like you would in a college stadium. It’s really collegiate level.”