One thought was to construct the part of the university building adjoining the west wall of the stadium first, and to leave the other part until after the Rugby World Cup "so the place doesn't look like a construction site during the world cup", Prof Skegg said at a university council meeting yesterday.
The university was "delighted" the Dunedin City Council had voted on Monday to accept a stadium construction tender, he said.
However, the project still had another hurdle to clear, after the Stop the Stadium lobby group lodged an injunction asking the High Court to rule the council must go through another round of public consultation to proceed.
It appeared the decision on whether the stadium would go ahead would be known within the next week, Prof Skegg said.
"Now the university needs to work hard on . . . its plans. We didn't want to proceed to detailed plans until we knew whether the stadium was going ahead."
He said he was "very excited" about the opportunities the stadium would provide for the university.
The university has also said its proposed 13,400sq m stadium building will go a long way towards addressing critical space issues and land shortages on the main campus.
