This is no teardown, no start-from-scratch approach.

But neither is Kentucky's $110 million renovation of Commonwealth Stadium a touchup. The university's football home since 1973 will undergo a significant renovation prior to the 2015 season that will give it an entirely new look inside in out.

"(When people) found out we weren't going to destroy the whole thing and start over, then they said, 'Oh they're just going to paint it,'" UK Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart said Monday at an unveiling of the renovation plan. "Well no, we're not just going to paint it. It was somewhere in between those two pieces, those two extremes."

The resulting middle ground is a stadium that will be smaller -- seating capacity will drop from 67,000 to 61,000 -- and more modern, with amenities for athletes and fans, particularly the program's most significant donors.

The project will be funded without state dollars as a result of Kentucky House Bill 7, which was approved in January and allowed for agency bonding of the renovation, along with a $100 million science building. UK athletics will pay $65 million of that cost.

"When the Wildcats take the field," Barnhart said, "you will be proud of our stadium."

Barnhart wanted a stadium that was more intimate -- it will feel smaller and more enclosed, he said -- and one that was unique to Kentucky. Commonwealth is the Southeastern Conference's newest stadium, and the new design by Gerardo Prado and architecture firm HTNB will emphasize contemporary touches.

A new facade will provide a rounder look to the outside of the stadium, and it will be highlighted by Kentucky limestone at the base. Reclaimed Kentucky barn wood will accent a new south entry lobby and lounges throughout the stadium.

Fans who enter the stadium now see "dark brown corrugated metal with bird poop," Prado said. HTNB's design addresses that, with an emphasis on "prettying it up," he said.

The change will be dramatic.

"I want to fast-forward and get to that look right now," coach Mark Stoops said during Monday's ceremony, an artist's rendering of the new look on a banner behind him. "That's beautiful."

He'll have to wait until 2015.

But when he gets it, the changes won't stop with the facade.

Perhaps the most dramatic change inside will come in the east end zone, home to a new (and reduced-capacity) student section. The Wildcats will enter the field through a tunnel in middle of that section, running out from a new gameday locker room underneath the east end zone.

"Where was this when I was a freshman?" senior linebacker Avery Williamson said of the renovations. "This is beautiful."

Above the Cats' new entrance tunnel will sit a long-desired recruiting room with an attached patio that overlooks the field.

Recruits will see the team run into the stadium from the recruiting room, though they're required by NCAA rule to leave it once play begins. They'll be seated in the nearby student section.

The recruiting room "makes it a little bit easier to get some of the guys you want to come to your program," former Cat Randall Cobb in a video statement.

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Elsewhere inside, the pole lights atop the stadium will be replaced with banks of lights similar to those at South Carolina. And Commonwealth will feature a new structure atop the south side of the stadium that will house a new press box as well as additional suites.

In addition, about 2,000 club chairback seats will be available at field level between the 25-yard lines on the south side. New suites at the field, mezzanine and club levels will increase the number of luxury seats available to fans willing to pay top dollar. As in current suites, alcohol will be available to fans in premium seating areas.

The majority of fans won't enjoy those perks, but there are new amenities elsewhere. The concourses will be 20 feet wider on the north side of the stadium, which will accommodate new and more varied concession options. The restrooms will be upgraded.

The changes will make Commonwealth Stadium "the Commonwealth's stadium," university President Eli Capilouto said.

And they will come with some challenges.

About 2,000 fans in the upper deck on the south side of the stadium will be displaced during the 2014 season as work begins on the new press box and suites. They'll be given opportunities to relocate for 2014. Barnhart promised the process will be "fair, equitable and transparent."

The entire stadium will have renumbered and reconfigured seats for 2015, and the season ticket price will remain unchanged per game through the 2015 season, Barnhart said, though eight home games in 2015 will increase the total cost of a season ticket.

The new seating plan is scheduled to be announced in January, just over a year after Stoops was introduced as the new coach and promises for new facilities were made.

"Today, we replace words with action," Capilouto said. "We acknowledge the strength of our resolve to compete and succeed in college football's most competitive conference."

Construction will begin in December, but most of the construction this offseason will be infrastructure. The bulk of the actual renovation will be done next offseason, with work beginning late in the 2014 season (UK doesn't play a home game in next season's final three weeks).

"I hope that in two years when we open this thing up, everybody's going to walk up and they're gonna say, 'This is pretty cool; that looks pretty neat,'" Barnhart said. "Lot different than what we had. I don't think people were ashamed of our stadium before. They weren't embarrassed by it, but it wasn't something you'd go and take your picture in front of. I don't know that that you would ever do that."