Facilities Update

Lots of great info....but this really caught my interest:

"We have had multiple contractors and stadium architects give us proposals as to what it will cost to do what is needed to do the major maintenance and to improve the concourses and we have proposals to drop the metal stands and replace them with a state of the art product. Renovating the stands and the concourses will be about $60 million and new stands with better revenue generating capacity would be about $150 million. We have documents that make a compelling case for renovating and documents that make a compelling case for building new. And when we did the club seat design we also thought ahead and have designs that are compatible if we decide to replace the East and West,"



Re: Champions Club-I'm Sold


Jerry Kutz
1/23/2015

"You are correct. We are facing $26 million in repairs to the main bowl and you can't just go borrow that money to make those repairs without a revenue source. The club seat project won't fund all of it but it will help. Every project we create is intended to generate revenue to fund the program which benefits all Seminole fans whether they choose to come to games or watch it from home."


"The $26 mill is to replace about 10 percent of the metal plates which are too rusted to repair, to weld a lot of structure, to sandblast the underside and topside to bare metal, do rust abatement, and coat the metal with what is an expensive coating. It is super labor intensive as there's a lot of wiring and delicate stuff underneath that has to be moved before you can sandblast the paint and rust. All the bleachers have to be removed s well to paint top side. Many raw need replacing. We are doing $6 million of the worst part now."


Jerry Kutz
1/31/2015

"Regular maintenance is something that has to be performed every year, it's not something you put off and forget and ignore until it's too late.  

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I agree with you. There needs to be a maintenance reserve in the athletics budget to keep the stadium healthy and that's a top priority for this administration. Every year you have fundamental work that needs to be done and about every 10 years you have major work that has to be done that is VERY expensive, kind of like replacing the roof on your house. If you do basic maintenance on your roof, you'll get a couple of extra years out of it but once it hits about 20 years old you still have to replace that roof. A metal stadium is the same thing. If you stay on top of it, it will last you longer than if you neglect it but the simple fact is eventually parts of a metal stadium have to be replaced. Doak was built in 1950 so its 64 years old in some parts, so the university has gotten a lot of service from it.

I also think you guys are right about why FSU didn't do the paint job five years ago when it needed it. If you remember (who will forget) the football team started going 6-6 and FSU lost 14,000 season ticket holders in the years right before Jimbo -- that's about $4 million in ticket revenue annually as well as some people withheld Booster contributions -- and the priority to fund the improvements Jimbo felt FSU needed to make to catch up with the competition took precedence and diluted the reserve to do that "replace the roof" maintenance.  We wish we had the money to have done the maintenance too but the money wasn't there and I believe it was probably wise to rebuild the football program with what money their was, first, and kick the maintenance can down the road.

We have had multiple contractors and stadium architects give us proposals as to what it will cost to do what is needed to do the major maintenance and to improve the concourses and we have proposals to drop the metal stands and replace them with a state of the art product. Renovating the stands and the concourses will be about $60 million and new stands with better revenue generating capacity would be about $150 million. We have documents that make a compelling case for renovating and documents that make a compelling case for building new. And when we did the club seat design we also thought ahead and have designs that are compatible if we decide to replace the East and West,


The Boosters and Athletics have studied both options. We are exploring funding sources of each; quantifying the differential in on-going maintenance costs, time to complete (both can be done between two football seasons). We have only recently given the President a 30,000 foot brief with information we've compiled. He will want to take a deeper dive into the numbers in the weeks to come but is thoughtfully engaged. We are doing what we have to do right now for the 2015 season but will not invest the big number until we fully vet our ability to fund a state of the art facility that will generate considerably more revenue with mid-level skyboxes, sideline club seats, better concession facilities, etc. It is a priority to vet that right away so we can move decisively. "