4 stadium plans get look

[owlcountry]

By Ted Hutton

STILLWATER, Okla. - While Oklahoma State is finishing an expansion on Boone Pickens Stadium from 44,700 to 60,000 seats, Florida Atlantic is less than two weeks away from finding out whether they will get an on-campus stadium and what it will look like when they finally do.

FAU Athletic Director Craig Angelos said before Saturday's game against the Cowboys that the FAU Board of Trustees would be considering four scenarios when they meet Sept. 18.

The original plan called for a 30,000-seat concrete structure with a price tag of $98 million, but Angelos said the school has been studying Central Florida's new 45,000-seat stadium that is steel and will cost much less.

FAU is considering three different sized steel stadiums — 30,000 seats for $62 million, 37,500 seats for $65 million and the last one the same size as UCF's, 45,000 seats, for $70 million.

Angelos said details of all four proposals will be sent to the trustees early next week so they have time to study them before the meeting.

"Everybody is behind an on-campus stadium," Angelos said. "It's just about what to build how to go about paying for it."

[fauowls44]

I'll take any of those choices....pick a plan and start building!

[fauowl09]

fauowls44 said:

I'll take any of those choices....pick a plan and start building!

A-*******-MEN!!!!!!!!

[Talon]

I hear that lets just "Get er done"

[Lm77]

I guarantee it will be the smallest, least expensive option. It will be a mini-UCF (33% smaller). We've gone from the state-of-the-art dome to the cut-rate erector set...

[CanadianOwl]

Gee, I wonder which plan our cheap-ass BOT will select?

I hope they remember, in the long run, it will cost less if they do it right the first time.

[rdownin1]

I dont care which option they choose to use just as long as it has the ability to expand and become something a lot better with more seats. I mean whats the point of building something you cant work with?

[owlfan1]

lm77 said:

I guarantee it will be the smallest, least expensive option. It will be a mini-UCF (33% smaller). We've gone from the state-of-the-art dome to the cut-rate erector set...

The dome was a dream from the beginning. Any type of stadium will be better than Lockhart. The most important thing is that it will be on campus and it will be brand new.

GO OWLS!!!

[owlfan1]

Here is a photo of UCF's new stadium. Looks like way more than an erector set to me. I actually think it looks pretty damn good.



GO OWLS!!!

[Lm77]

Can you follow the decline in the quotes below? It seems absurd to me that we can spend over *three years* working on a proposal for a Dome and an additional year and a half working on an open-air stadium (which was clearly intended to be concrete as shown by the comments comparing the facility to UCF's) with absolutely nothing to show. We can expect the lower level of UCF's stadium towards 2011 or later since we need to build dorms and shops first rather than going into our endowment fund (which is far larger than UCF's or FIU's).

Building the stadium for 1999 would have been far less expensive than building it today considering the dramatically rising construction costs, what we have spent on Dolphin Stadium (through 2012!) and Lockhart, and missed revenue from other opportunities.

From Ask the AD:

July 30, 2007

Thanks for the email. The latest on the football stadium is that the Board of Trustees will most likely officially vote on the stadium at their meeting on September 17, 2007. Naturally, there could be delays even at this point but I think it is safe to say that we are going to have a stadium on campus hopefully as early as 2010. At the November 2006 meeting the Trustees seemed to make the decision that they were going to endorse a 30,000 seat open air stadium. That is were we are headed at this point. With regard to 2008 we are still monitoring the situation with Lockhart Stadium and we will see whether the stadium developer would be willing to fund a temporary stadium for 2008 and 2009 until we can officially move into our stadium in 2010. Plus, we are still undecided about where we will be playing in 2008.

Thanks for your patience and support,
Craig

July 5, 2007

Sorry for the delay in response to your email. I have seen all the positive press UCF and FIU have been getting regarding their stadium. My sincere belief is that our stadium will be better than either of those and we will get our deserved attention at that time. This process is moving pretty good now so that we should have some definite plans by this fall and we still plan on opening by 2010. Stay tuned, and thanks for your support.

Craig

September 27, 2006

Thanks for the question we are meeting with the Trustees in late October to discuss the status of the Dome Stadium project. Over the last three years, we have evolved to the concept of the Innovation Village that would have dorm space, retail space, hotel space, and a dome stadium. The unique public/private partnership can work at FAU. We will have a better idea of the Trustees' position after the meeting and then we will see where we go from there.

Stay with us,
Craig

June 14, 2006

Thank you for your email. The problem with doing any type of dome stadium especially one with a retractable roof is the escalating costs. To do a dome stadium with retractable roof it would cost in the $400 million range. Also, these stadiums such as the one in Arizona and Seattle are mega stadiums with a lot of room underneath the roof. When we looked at the whether to build a basketball arena and a separate football field or build a multiuse dome facility, it was less expensive to build a very scaled down dome facility such as the Syracuse Carrier Dome. Keep in mind that footprint is much smaller than the mega dome stadiums. As an example, look at UCF. They are building a 10,000 seat basketball arena for $60,000-$80,000 million and are building a scaled down football stadium for $60,000 million. They will have two very plain facilities but it will still cost more than doing one scaled down dome stadium such as what we are trying to accomplish. Thanks for your question.

[Talon]

The idea on the dome should have never changed. Friends of mine that went to the big three thought that was going to be such a cool venue.

I believe they (the BOT and others in command) delayed this so that people (us) would get frustrated enough at not having a stadium that we would accept and welcome anything no matter what type of stadium or how cheap. Let the games begin September 18th and watch them continue. Next year they may decide on which of the 4 new types of stadiums they may try to build.

[Bytor]

talon said:

The idea on the dome should have never changed. Friends of mine that went to the big three thought that was going to be such a cool venue.

I believe they (the BOT and others in command) delayed this so that people (us) would get frustrated enough at not having a stadium that we would accept and welcome anything no matter what type of stadium or how cheap. Let the games begin September 18th and watch them continue. Next year they may decide on which of the 4 new types of stadiums they may try to build.

No question the Dome would have set us apart from the other Florida schools, given us something no other school in Florida has, imagine that - the visionLESS BoT is now going to give us their version of Lockhart on campus Why be original

I'm sure the UCF stadium will be nice when done, but by the time the Bot decides on ours, it'll be a updated OVERPRICED Lockhart.

[owlfan1]

I don't know. I have always been against the dome and in favor of open-air and playing in the elements. I know this is isn't a popular opinion, but I personally am happy without a dome.

I don't think Angelos and the athletic department will settle for "an updated OVERPRICED Lockhart." It will be much better than Lockhart even if it is only 30,000 seats. I think that based on the above photo of the UCF stadium FAU could make the new stadium a horseshoe and still have 30,000 or more seats. That way it wouldn't just be a miniature UCF stadium. Instead, it would have a design all its own.

Maybe I am being too optimistic on this one.

GO OWLS!!!

[Bytor]

I was venting a bit of fustration & sarcasm - I like many others just want some kind of decision to be made. Everyone said they anat a stadium, yet it is taking forever to get any type of commitment from the ones that have the power to make it happen. This things has been talked about for long enough, already.

On Sept 17, we better have good news.

[owlcountry]

lm77 said:

I guarantee it will be the smallest, least expensive option. It will be a mini-UCF (33% smaller). We've gone from the state-of-the-art dome to the cut-rate erector set...

Exactly. My first thought was that they'll go with the cheapest one, especially when they're told that the average attendance is less than the smallest venue and the eventual idea is to expand as attendance fills.

We'll get a 30,000-seater. But if it looks as good as UCF's (and I think it looks good) I'd take it with no qualms. But paint the bleachers red and blue, please.

Anyway, the upside is that 45,000 seats is only $8 million more than the 30,000 seater... and while that's a lot of average joes like us... to those in the business of building million dollar facilities (i.e. wellness center) that's really not a big deal.

Now, there are forces out there that are keeping a watchful and condescending eye on FAU. I believe that no matter what we build, whether it's 30k or 50k, people are going to gripe that a university education should be about ACADEMICS and a fourth-tier institution should not be spending this much money on a stadium. And they're right about the first part but we all obviously disagree about the second part.

However, UCF's headstart on us actually works to our favor considering that they too were a no-name, fourth tier commuter school with no football stadium

and then

they started building more housing, amenities like a recreation center, Greek housing, stadium (sound familiar?) etc and now they attract Merit scholars and have ascended into the third tier. (We do have those high-achieving students at FAU, btw... the average incoming freshmen GPA for the Honors College in 2006 was 3.95)

So we can point to UCF and say, "That's what will happen to FAU if we build X,Y, and Z" and, although there are some regional differences, we're both on the same trajectory.

For years FAU considered community colleges to be their competition and didn't focus on the bigger schools. Now FAU's main competition is UCF and to a lesser extent UF and FSU (since the flagships will always draw people based on history, endowments, family ties... like "We're a Gator family"). FAU and UCF are in a war for the middle students, the low A/high B students that don't get into UF/FSU.

The problem is that if we build anything less than a 45,000-seat stadium, people are going to be able to say, "Oh yeah, they have something like that at UCF but it's bigger/better."

And then we don't win any battles over prospective students.