Northwestern University Thursday afternoon released results of a public opinion survey that says most Evanstonians favor the Ryan Field rebuild project — including holding concerts at the new stadium.
The survey, conducted for the school by Impact Research, showed 56% of Evanstonians, when initially asked, supported the rebuild, while only 29% were against it.
After the researchers providing additional information about the project, the support level increased to 63%
The researchers say 64% of respondents favored hosting a dozen concerts a year at the new field. Cutting the concert count to 10 raised support to 69% and reducing the count to eight raised the share of supporters to 74%.
The researchers say residents living within a mile of the stadium were almost equally supportive of the project, compared to residents elsewhere in the city.
The poll was conducted Jan. 13-17 surveyed 500 residents across the city’s nine wards. The margin of error for that sample size is +/- 4.5 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. Three quarters of the interviews were conducted by cell phone.
More details of the survey results are available online. (.pdf)