https://floridastate.forums.rivals.com/threads/champions-club-the-commoners-and-improvements.217384/page-3
You are exactly right. And that's why we have 100 skyboxes and now 5800 club seats.
One future renovation of Doak has already been imagined. Architects have sketched a stadium with wider seats, more leg room, and open concourses with better amenities. We did the design before we built the CC to be sure we could do it without blocking CC site lines.
When you build wider seats and aisles, you eat up space which naturally reduces capacity but upgrades experience.
The market is softer than SEC and other P5 schools would like for you to believe and you'll see capacity shrink in years to come.
Capacity used to drive revenue. 100k seats used to be greater than 80k seats. But many colleges have found they can generate more with less. And if you design the stadium properly, with closed ends and cantilevered seats closer to the sideline, you can maintain crowd noise with more intimacy than our current design where row 50 and above are farther from the sidelines than they will be.
You make a good point. The existing infrastructure does not lend itself to beer and alcohol sales .
The future vision for Doak would blow up the existing concession infrastructure and totally replace the sewer, plumbing and electric. This would give our concession partner the resources to offer a wide array of food and beverage options, including alcohol. As you said, to make it work right you also want wider aisles and more and better bathrooms.
Could it happen sooner? Sure. But I think it would have to be in "beer gardens" or special spaces where we could provide the right infrastructure.
While our infrastructure is nothing to brag about, we are not alone. There are a number of stadiums -- including UF -- with antiquated concessions. At least at Doak you have options. You can join the UCC for about $50 a month and have access to the 3rd floor patio and ball room where you can buy beer, wine or mixed drinks, upgraded concessions and tiled bathrooms. Doak also has skyboxes, the Varsity Club, skyboxes and club seats.
The next question is when will FSU address those changes to Doak? We have a design and a budget estimate (about $400 million in 2016 dollars) to replace all the infrastructure and grandstands. Right now we are focused on raising money for a football operations building, baseball, golf and basketball but I know it is Andy Miller's ambition to add the stadium project before his career is over. I think he'd like to say in the next five to seven years.
Hopefully this football building gets completed in the next 3 years. The next football project after that should be this, the total overhaul of the home stands.
ReplyDeleteSince seats generate revenue, we can bond some of it. That'd be a good 5-7 goal to start construction. And then the visitor stands would hopefully be within 5 years of that.
There's no way FSU pulls $500 million out of its butt to do it all at once. Nor should it take on all that debt at once.
Hopefully the accn actually adds that extra $10 million/year, which would certainly make renovations easier. But you can't assume any of that tv money actually comes to fruition at this point.
We also still need to dump at least $30 million into basketball, too (expanded practice facilities/offices and "grand" arena entrance way). If we wish to hire a good coach once Hamilton is done, improved facilities will have to be part of that deal.
As for alcohol sales, YES! Do it now. Do it for 2018. The whole stadium. Wine, simple cocktails (rum and coke, vodka tonic, etc), and beer. Easy money.