New FSU Football Facility discussion (with some humor at the bottom)

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/sports/college/fsu/football/2018/05/17/fsu-still-exploring-all-options-football-facility-upgrades/618468002/



The FSU administration has conducted a feasibility study that's focused on two options.

One option is to renovate the Moore Athletic Center, which is connected to Doak Campbell Stadium and has housed the football program since the 1950s.

The other option is for FSU to build a new stand-alone football facility, which has become a trend among major college football programs like Alabama, Oregon, and Clemson over the past decade.

The Moore Athletic Center not only houses the football program, but also the entire athletic department. It's home to other programs, Seminole Productions, FSU's communications department and classes, a weight room that is used by most sports, and a training room that is used by most sports.

There's just not enough room in the building for the athletic programs, and FSU realizes that.

Now it's about finding the best solution to the problem.

“With the growth of staff sizes and the evolution of recruiting, more functional space is important," Curry said.

FSU also had to consider the other programs that are housed in the Moore Athletic Center during the feasibility study.

If the facility is renovated, it will have to be done in sections. The renovation could take up to two-and-a-half years to complete, and would cause quite a few logistical issues for the athletic department.

It would displace programs and classes during the renovation, and then the other half of the building would have to be completed causing the same issues for the other programs.

There's also the problem of where to put those programs -- including football -- while their half of the facility is being upgraded.

The stand-alone facility could be completed in almost a year less time than the renovation, and wouldn't require any of the other programs or classes to be displaced.

It would also give those other programs more room to work with as the football program takes up the majority of the space in the Moore Center currently.

The location for the stand-alone facility -- if FSU decides to go that route -- is still undecided. However, the parking lot beside the indoor practice field is one of the prime candidates.

"When we commissioned the design team to execute the feasibility study we really didn’t put any parameters on them in terms of where this could go if it was the stand-alone facility," Curry said.

"It was a directive from the start for them to explore an expansion of the Moore Center. So that was one of the options they explored. From there, we let them use their expertise and discretion to identify a site location that might work as a second option.

"What we’ve found and what we’ve seen at other places is that some adjacencies to the indoor practice facility and the outdoor practice fields allows us to leverage the current space to create some more efficiencies in terms of operational functionality."

But there will certainly be changes coming to the FSU football facilities over the next few years.

Seminole Boosters, Inc., the fundraising arm of athletics, continues to raise money for facilities. Priorities determined by the administration include the football operations facility, The Don Veller Seminole Golf Course and Club, Dick Howser Stadium and locker rooms for men's and women's basketball.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/florida-state-seminoles/chopping-block-blog/os-sp-fsu-acc-spring-meetings-20180516-story.html

The Seminoles have been making steady progress on a new, state-of-the-art complex with the hope of streamlining work and enhancing productivity for the football program’s coaches, players and personnel. But FSU remains in the early stages of the project.

FSU athletics director Stan Wilcox said Tuesday that the school is reviewing the findings of a feasibility study conducted by architectural design firm Populous.

Two options FSU is considering is constructing a new building connected to the indoor football complex or retrofitting the Moore Athletic Center at Doak Campbell Stadium.

“I don’t want to reveal too much, but we’ve been talking at the highest level about our vision there. We’ve had Populous do a feasibility study and we’re continuing to study that,” Wilcox said.

“The main thing that we also look at is what other schools in the country are doing. We’ve got to look at where we fall on that spectrum and we don’t want to fall behind. We’re going to make sure we do the best thing for our program to keep our program ahead of the curve.”


After spending a season at Oregon last year, Taggart brings a unique perspective to Florida State and the project.

Taggart’s main gripe with the current state of FSU’s facilities is a lack of efficiency.

In case you missed it, new #FSU HC Willie Taggart wants standalone football facility instead of renovating Moore. https://t.co/qjBd0z34nO

— Warchant.com (@Warchant) May 16, 2018

https://floridastate.forums.rivals.com/threads/starting-to-think-a-new-baseball-facility-in-lot-14-and-football-building.218655/page-2

c691027 said: ↑

Agreed, make it and the football only facitlity THE crown jewels of even the best SEC schools.

Then FSU better be ready to spend upwards of $50 million for a new baseball facility.

Recent SEC school baseball projects:

UK: building a $49 million baseball park.
UF: building a $50 million baseball park.
Bama: renovated its park to the tune of $42.5 million.
UGA: spent $12 million on renovations recently.
LSU: built one for $37.8 million and has already gone through a set of renovations in 2010 and 2012 to add more seating.
Ole Miss: plans $13 million in renovations.
Mississippi State: planning a $55 million renovation.
Missouri: might build a new stadium for $35-45 million.
South Carolina; paid $35 million for its stadium in 2009 and is doing upgrades already.
Texas A&M: $24 million in renovations before the 2012 season
Vandy: $10 million in upgrades.
Auburn's planning something.

Keep in mind that FSU baseball operates $2 million in the red annually. Can FSU afford to spend $50 million for a new stadium for a sport that loses money? Are FSU baseball fans willing to shell out more money to watch the Noles play baseball?

43 NoleOne, Today at 1:50 PM

We dont operate in the red. I have our last 5 years in front of me and none are negative.

64 jamnolfin, 59 minutes ago

Where would YOU put the new Football Facility?

According to the latest FSU facilities meeting held earlier this week: "They've met with Coach Taggart on the Football Operations facility. Looks like the new plan is to squeeze in a 155,000 sq. ft. facility in place of the narrow parking lot that's immediately between the football practice facility and Stadium Dr."

You wait and see what they come up with along with Coach Taggarts input. After our meeting yesterday on all the new facilities I realized these things dont have simple answers. There Is so many things that are permanent fixtures in the Moore like locker room game day operations and the coaches are not giving up their field view offices. So a new building splits things up. The logistics of redoing the Moore has numerous issues that Jerry mentioned previously. It could be a combination of the two. Where does a academic center fit in? There is much more to it.

47 jamnolfin, Feb 22, 2018

48 Sawyer55, Feb 22, 2018

Here is a Previous thread discussing this topic and a vote on possible options. #2 received the most votes.



My plan: option 2 AND Langford. Call the operations facility the "spearhead" or "tip of the spear." Re-orient the parking rows adjacent to Langford into lines resembling feather. Get the "Spear from Space" going! /s

I thought we agreed ReliableOstrich's plan to build it on top of the new glass ceiling at Doak? The basic form of the design is brilliant.



Alternatively, I liked his idea to turn the entire main campus into a football operations center. Plenty of room for future expansion based on player needs.

31

NoleOne, Feb 22, 2018

update