The clock is ticking. There's roughly seven weeks to have a new-and-improved Cube installed at the Railyard by the end of August.
"We've got to have it in place for football," Greg Frayser, chief operating officer and general counsel for WRK Real Estate, which manages the Railyard and the Cube for its owner, TDP Phase One LLC. "There's gonna be a mutiny on our hands if it's not ready."
The Huskers open the football season Aug. 31 in Minnesota, one night after Nebraska plays a volleyball game inside Memorial Stadium.
Frayser expects the Railyard and its new state-of-the-art screen — with a price tag of $1 million — to be a popular destination for those two days.
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However, Husker fans wouldn't complain about the previous Cube, said Brandon Akert, owner of the Railyard's Gate 25 Bar and Restaurant.
They still showed up each week despite the fact that some panels weren't working and others were badly discolored, which was to be expected for a piece of technology with a seven-year shelf life that was in its 10th year of operation, he said.Â
"Football Saturdays are so easy," Akert said. "It's like 'Field of Dreams.' If you build it, they will come. It's the other 353 days that are a challenge. That's when we have to get people out there."
One of the original plans had little to do with sports. Former Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler advocated early on for the digital artwork of students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to be shown on the Cube.
Frayser said he has been in contact with the Johnny Carson School of Emerging Media for ways to show off some of that art.
For now, dismantling the old Cube is the priority.
A half-dozen workers have spent this week taking apart the old LED screen — 14-by-40 feet on its north side and 14-by-14 feet on the west side — that will be replaced by an LED screen with about 2 million pixels, about 10 times as sharp as its predecessor.
"It's like going from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 14," Akert said. "It's going to be amazing."
It's money well-spent, Frayser said.
"We felt like it was worth the investment to upgrade it," he said. "The community gets a lot of use out of it."
But he's quick to point out that the Cube, sponsored by Lincoln-based Union Bank & Trust and a handful of other local businesses, is not a moneymaker.
"This is a capital improvement for the owners of the Railyard," Frayser said. "We see it as something that's necessary to continue the vibrancy of the area and serving the community.
"… It is an important amenity for the area."
For a while, it looked as though getting a new Cube delivered and operational this calendar year was going to be next to impossible.
Frayser said supply chain issues and a pending dockworkers strike on the West Coast threatened its delivery from China.
"We were told that it could sit on a boat waiting to be unloaded for months," Frayser said.
To avoid the potential for that kind of calamity, the Cube, which is made up of dozens of LED panels, was instead flown to the Midwest.
"We ended up pivoting by paying some extra money and sticking it on an airplane," he said. "It was the right decision."