Opened nameless in the inaugural game was a one-point conference win over Montana before 12,860 on it hosted five games that first season, with an average attendance NAU football was previously played outdoors on natural grass at Lumberjack Stadium. The dome hosted the Big Sky men's basketball tournament in 1987, 1997, 1998, For its first six years, the Walkup Skydome was the world's largest clear-span timber dome, until the completion of the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington, in 1983. was Wendell Rossman of Phoenix, also responsible for many other buildings on the surrounding NAU campus. used in construction of Walkup Skydome was southern yellow pine. At its launching in 1977, it was the third indoor football stadium in the Big Sky Conference: Holt Arena at Idaho State in Pocatello opened in 1970 and the Kibbie Dome at Idaho in Moscow was enclosed in 1975, after four years as an outdoor venue.
The Skydome is named after J. Lawrence Walkup, the president of NAU from 1957 to 1979, a period of tremendous growth for the university. During an era of tight budgets in the mid-1970s, he creatively coordinated financing for the venue. More than half of the $8 million project came from voluntary student fee increases, supplemented with $1.5 million in legislative funding and a campus fund of $2 million from two decades of vending-machine revenue. The athletic director at NAU at the time was Hank Anderson, who served from 1974 through 1983. The two-year-old Skydome was named for Walkup after his retirement in 1979. The elevation at street level is above sea level, the highest among NCAA Division I FCS football stadiums and second among NCAA Division I football venues only to an FBS venue, Wyoming'sWar Memorial Stadium, by. Originally AstroTurf, the playing surface for football was changed to infilled FieldTurf in 2002.
Renovation
The building underwent a major renovation from December 2010 to September 2011 at a cost of $26 million. The scope of the project included bringing the fire, life, and safety up to code while remodeling the bathrooms, concourse, offices, suites, locker rooms, and press box. The athletic training and equipment on the main floor were also remodeled and three elevators were added to the complex. Fans now enter the building to a panoramic view of the field on the east and west concourses. Capacity was reduced to 10,000, but it now features 21-in-wide chair-back seating.
