https://floridastate.forums.rivals.com/threads/the-case-for-reducing-seat-count-in-doak-cambell.209215/
I am asking the question of should we reduce the number of seats in Doak Campbell Stadium? A stadium that seats 79,560 fans. We know recent renovations reduced capacity from 82,300. Is that enough of a drop?
Where's there's a will (and a checkbook), there's a way.
The Dunlap Champions Club was the largest project ever completed in Leon County within 9 months. Childers Construction did an amazing job of finding subs and managing the work flow without shutting down the classroom offices or the University Center Club or the Visitor Center. We had about 10,000 people walking through or around our job site every day. If an instructor couldn't hear himself think, or a bride was getting married, we took a break from whatever was disruptive until their event was over.
It would be great if we could play the games elsewhere for one season but that ship probably won't sail. You could gain a month or so -- which would be huge -- if you worked your schedule just right. Start in mid November of an even year season when we play at Florida around thanksgiving -- and schedule our early September games on a neutral site or on the road. You work with your head coach to choose which poison you take but this is better than moving all the games.
While a lot of this project will be simpler than the Champions Club, it will still be 2 to 4 times bigger than the Champions Club. So we would have to supplement the skilled work force (electricians, plumbers, etc.) to accomplish this entire project within 9 months or phase the scope. We expected to receive bids from subcontractors from Jax, Orl, Atl, Tampa on the Champions Club but there was so much work in those areas we didn't get many competitive bids and had to ask the local work force to staff up and to work two 10-hour shifts and they got it done one day ahead of deadline!
We've talked to Legends and Skanska and others who have built stadiums of this size, where they bring in the skilled labor to supplement the local talent pool, so its possible.
There are other issues involved with building on such a tight campus, where you don't have any laydown area to speak of, but Childers and others have figured those logistics out.
While this will be a massive undertaking, it is simplified to a great extent in that you don't have to mess with the premium spaces (skyboxes, pressbox or club seats) and you don't have as much to do with the exterior as the University Center complex will remain. But keeping those exterior buildings also creates logistics issues for the contractor who will have to build it in a bottle with students and administrators continually using those classroom office spaces.
My experience with Childers and the Champions Club was your contractor and the university can figure out what scope is possible within whatever timeline you have. They are professionals. For example: we started the elevator towers in July, ahead of the 2015 football season, and before we began work on the Champions Club (to be completed by 2016 season)which gave us an extra six months on a significant portion of project.
I could see that happening on this upcoming project.
I haven't had those discussions with contractors, or FSU facilities yet, but it may be we could get approval to build the seating structure only the first year -- with temporary concessions and restrooms -- and full completion by the following season.
It will be imperative to be fully designed and vetted long before anyone sticks a shovel in the ground and be disciplined during the time period. There can be no scope creep once the project begins. They'll need to stick to plan A which is easier said than done for those who know of such things.
The Dunlap Champions Club was the largest project ever completed in Leon County within 9 months. Childers Construction did an amazing job of finding subs and managing the work flow without shutting down the classroom offices or the University Center Club or the Visitor Center. We had about 10,000 people walking through or around our job site every day. If an instructor couldn't hear himself think, or a bride was getting married, we took a break from whatever was disruptive until their event was over.
It would be great if we could play the games elsewhere for one season but that ship probably won't sail. You could gain a month or so -- which would be huge -- if you worked your schedule just right. Start in mid November of an even year season when we play at Florida around thanksgiving -- and schedule our early September games on a neutral site or on the road. You work with your head coach to choose which poison you take but this is better than moving all the games.
While a lot of this project will be simpler than the Champions Club, it will still be 2 to 4 times bigger than the Champions Club. So we would have to supplement the skilled work force (electricians, plumbers, etc.) to accomplish this entire project within 9 months or phase the scope. We expected to receive bids from subcontractors from Jax, Orl, Atl, Tampa on the Champions Club but there was so much work in those areas we didn't get many competitive bids and had to ask the local work force to staff up and to work two 10-hour shifts and they got it done one day ahead of deadline!
We've talked to Legends and Skanska and others who have built stadiums of this size, where they bring in the skilled labor to supplement the local talent pool, so its possible.
There are other issues involved with building on such a tight campus, where you don't have any laydown area to speak of, but Childers and others have figured those logistics out.
While this will be a massive undertaking, it is simplified to a great extent in that you don't have to mess with the premium spaces (skyboxes, pressbox or club seats) and you don't have as much to do with the exterior as the University Center complex will remain. But keeping those exterior buildings also creates logistics issues for the contractor who will have to build it in a bottle with students and administrators continually using those classroom office spaces.
My experience with Childers and the Champions Club was your contractor and the university can figure out what scope is possible within whatever timeline you have. They are professionals. For example: we started the elevator towers in July, ahead of the 2015 football season, and before we began work on the Champions Club (to be completed by 2016 season)which gave us an extra six months on a significant portion of project.
I could see that happening on this upcoming project.
I haven't had those discussions with contractors, or FSU facilities yet, but it may be we could get approval to build the seating structure only the first year -- with temporary concessions and restrooms -- and full completion by the following season.
It will be imperative to be fully designed and vetted long before anyone sticks a shovel in the ground and be disciplined during the time period. There can be no scope creep once the project begins. They'll need to stick to plan A which is easier said than done for those who know of such things.
Chair backs won't work in the existing structure because there is only 26 inches between your bleacher seat and the one in front of you. A chair back requires at least 30 inches. So that requires totally replacing all the seating plates and reduces the number of rows by about 15 percent so rather than 80 rows, like we have now, we'd fall to about 68 rows. Once you do that, you trigger all the other codes -- including ADA -- which has additional severe impacts on capacity so you can't do it half way and maintain capacity.
The same is true for adding 2-4 inches to your seat width. There's 38 seats per row in most sections. If you add 4 inches per seat, you reduce the number of seats to 30 and four people on each end of your row have to move over a section and it disrupts seating blocks and moves people off aisles. Its an inconvenience for some in the first section affected but becomes magnified as you move further and further toward the endzone.
We've mocked it up and its a mess if you don't do a full reseat and that would create a lot of hard ache for people who have been seated in the same place and love their neighbors around them.
If you are going to disrupt your entire fan base, I think you have to give them something more than an extra 2 or 4 inches (insert joke here).
Agree with your post.
We had HKS come in about 5 years ago and do a master plan for the highest and best use for Doak. They envisioned the south endzone with the champions club as phase one with the east and west sidelines as phase 2 (and probably) phase 3.
The Champions Club is built and will reach critical mass this fall in terms of sales. It was profitable in year 1 with sales at 50 percent so Seminole Boosters is encouraged to move forward with raising money and completing design for phase 2 and 3 if athletics and the university and board of trustees is on board. It could happen within the next 7-10 years.
We had the architects give us a conceptual design of what the east and west could look like before we built phase 1. We needed to contemplate what the east and west structures would be someday before we built the Champions Club now and found we had blocked sightlines later. So while the east and west are not detailed drawings, they give us an idea of what the capacity could be with that design which is just north of 70,000.
Once we start the east and west, we have to upgrade to the new building code and meet all ADA requirements which is a good thing but eats away at capacity. If we kept the same bowl perimeter (which we probably will be confined to), and widened the majority of seats to 20 inches and went to a 30 inch tread rather than current 26 inch tread, it would reduce capacity to 50-55k. Just widening the aisles to put in a hand rail and required handicapped seating cuts capacity 5,000 seats. But you gain back 10k-15k seats by cantilevering the upper 6-10 rows of seats over the lower rows of seats like we've done in the Champions Club.
So, we can get it back to 70k or slightly more.
And I agree there are sections that could be standing decks or tighter seating for students (who don't want to sit) and visiting fans and a cheap seat section for fans who need to sample college game day.
The east and west sideline renovation would tear down only the metal seating structure, ramps, concourses, bathrooms and concession stands and not touch the brick buildings which house 500,000 sq ft of classrooms and offices and are topped with the skyboxes and press box. So, while it is a daunting project, it does not require a total demo, only the metal structure inside the University Center Complex buildings.
You are also correct about the spans. We are told the support spans can be spaced 2 or 3 times farther apart which requires fewer columns and gives us a lot of flexibility for concessions, bathrooms, etc.
Current cost to build is about $250 to $300 million and would need to be raised. We envision about 10 mid level skyboxes that we would lease to 10 individuals who made very large leadership gifts ($10 million or more) to the project. The remaining money would require a major capital campaign.
While all this is exciting to FSU season ticket holders, be forewarned: a project of this magnitude scrambles all the eggs in terms of seating. Stadium folks we've talked to, who have gone through a major project like this, tell us the only way to get it done is to do a total reseating of your existing season ticket holders.
Even if you just widen the seats in Doak from 16 inches to 20 inches, you reduce the number of people who can sit in a row from 38 to about 30. You do that in each of your center 6 sections and people who now sit on the 20 would be moved to the goal line.
As you get into actually trying to reseat -- which we have contemplated -- it gets very disruptive for groups of people who are used to sitting together or around the same people, or on an aisle, etc.
We've had lively discussion on how best to accomplish it.
One more thought...
Don't look at this as a capacity reduction play. We would not seek to reduce capacity but rather to add amenities and a more enjoyable fan experience to increase our retention and yield per seat.
A wise ticket man once told me retention and yield should be at the core of any decision you make with your program.
I think based on the demographics of our market and the physics of our stadium we can create a variety of appropriately priced experiences for 70k people that will maximize the optimum retention and yield.
When FSU renovates Doak, as it will have to do eventually, regulatory laws will pretty much cause a reduction in seating regardless.
I think a forced reduction in seating is an admission we aren't the program we want to claim we are. Maybe I am old fashioned, but it's how I think.
I am OK with a modern, beautiful 75K seat brick stadium. But forcing a 60K stadium says we aren't really elite.
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