Suite level suites  Red Zone suites

A suite experience

By Les Carpenter
Seattle Times staff reporter

	ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES
	The suites offer comfort and practicality. The windows can be rolled back along the edge of the suite and stored in a side compartment to allow an unobstructed view of the field.

It's not that easy to make a stadium suite unique anymore. After all, what do you do? Throw in a couple rows of upholstered chairs, a minibar and a window? How can you make that any different? This is why the stadium's designers first proposed the idea of field-level suites to the Seahawks. The $80,000 field suites in the north end zone are probably the most original feature the new stadium has to offer.

Three Seahawks players — Shawn Springs, Walter Jones and Chad Brown — have purchased suites for this season. Each of the 12 "Red Zone" suites has a small patio with seats and a little room inside for entertaining during games. What it offers is a look at the game that has never been provided, since the suites lurk at about helmet-level just a few yards from the back of the end zone.

Among the amenities in each suite are two flat-screen HDTVs, a phone, a stereo and a wet bar.

Even in the rest of the stadium, the suites are not traditional.

Kelly Kerns, project manager for Ellerbe Becket, said the Seahawks came to him early in the design process and asked to have windows that can roll out of the view of the spectators in the suites. In most stadiums, the suite windows simply slide open or, in rare occasions, stack up on the side of the suite. In either case, the suite-holders are looking through extra panes of glass when trying to watch a game.

What the Seahawks wanted was a way for the windows to slide out of the way completely. Ellerbe Becket designed the windows to roll on a track, sliding along the edge of the suite and stacking up in a compartment on the side that is behind the last line of seats. The result is an unblemished view of the field.