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A high school football program in Pennsylvania recently broke ground on its brand-new football stadium. The Executive Education Academy Charter School is going to play its games on top of a parking garage starting next season. Hopefully.
There will be no problems trying to find a place to park!
Believe it or not, this is not the first high school football stadium built on top of a multi-use structure. However, it will be the first stadium of its kind in a rural setting and it is going to be super cool.
Where in Pennnsylvania is the Executive Education Academy Charter School?
The Executive Education Academy Charter School is perhaps better known as the Allentown Charter School. Located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the prestigious campus is nestled right along the Lehigh River on the northeast side of the city, just south of the airport.
The school enrolls only 125 students per grade in grades K-12— so a total of about 1,600 students. There is a year-long wait list with a lottery system each spring. Per the school website, “students in grades 9-12 are provided with rigorous coursework that will prepare them for career and college readiness.”
They are also presented with the opportunity to compete in sports.
The Raptors play an eight-game regular season high school football schedule in the Pennsylvania Division AA. They currently sit at 4-3 through their first seven games of 2025.
The location of the Executive Education Academy Charter School presented an issue when the school went to built a new football stadium. It backs right up to Coca-Cola Park, home to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs minor league baseball team.
Google Maps
There at first did not appear to be enough room to build a new stadium on the shared lot next to the school. The Iron Pigs hold the rights to the lot, which is most often used for parking and they were not keen to the idea of losing that space …
… so the Charter School got creative!
It is going to build a brand-new turf field, stands for 4,000 spectators, a press box and concessions at the cost of $25 million. The new stadium will be built on top of a 300-space parking garage.
Not next to. On top of.
“That’s why we came up with the deck idea, because we don’t want to take away parking spaces. We want the IronPigs to have the same amount of parking they have right now. That was very positive to be able to work with the IronPigs organization and Lehigh County to pull it off,” EEACS CEO Bob Lysek told The Morning Call.
Here is a look at the artist rendering:
Bob Lysek, Executive Education Academy Charter School // Mohawk Contracting & Development/Alloy5 Architecture
Not only does this construction plan solve the issue of how to keep the parking lot in tact, the stadium itself presents a beautiful backdrop of the rolling rural Pennsylvania hills. And the stadium itself is actually pretty cool looking, if you ask me!
A high school in New Jersey recently built its new football stadium on top of the school itself because of spacial constraints in such an urban area. This is not quite the same but just as unique. (And way better!)