Scott, I can not find the link this morning either. They are making more improvements to both the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, new turf, new locker rooms, film room etc. The stadium is getting new turf as well plus another 2600 seats are being added in the South End (open end) of the stadium. New capacity will be somewhere in the 105,000 range.
I'd call it a tune up if you are only getting new carpet and 2600 seats!! I notice that your turf was 6 years old. I wonder if that is the standard life span for Field Turf? Irish are going to turf, one of the motivations besides the difficulty in maintaining a quality grass field, was the cost savings in maintence. But if you have to replace it every 5 or 6 years I wonder if it's a real savings. Many Irish fans were distressed at the change to turf, and wanted some sort of system like the Packers use, but we were told that's too expensive.
In my experience working with public school districts who installed turf as part of construction or renovation projects, the expected useful life was well beyond 10 years, something like 15 or 20. This was 5-10 years ago. I'm guessing that the advancing technology has provided an improved product in terms of materials and safety.
So I wonder why Ohio State needed to replace their field. I know that school districts are high use deals, with multiple sports year round using the field(s). But I would assume that OSU was a low use field. Do they rent it out to High Schools in the area? Have tractor pulls, concerts, etc? At Reliant Stadium, like many public stadiums, they try to get as many events booked into to the stadium to generate more income than just the Texans. Of course we have a natural grass field system (trays) and they remove them for most events, and can change out worn sections during the season. Which btw, still results in a pretty worn out field by the end of the season.
The turf carpet was eight years old. They left the underlying material on the field and just replaced the carpet since the Woody Hayes practice facility was also being replaced, probably saved us some bucks! Yes, the overall project was a tune up to the tune of about five million dollars. Other varsity playing areas were also improved.