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)

Bill Smith is the editor and publisher of Evanston Now.

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