Picture of the Athletic District

[ChiTownBull]

the soccer thing has some sort of entry way

[Greg Auman]

The soccer stadium has some cool features planned. Main seating would cover 3,000 fans, enough to be a host site for conference and NCAA postseason events. The smaller buildings to the left and right of the main seating would be the locker rooms, player lounges and coaches' offices for each team. What's more, the design would have the actual field dug into the ground a bit, creating a "Death Valley" type situation. The rendition calls for berms on three sides of the field, which would allow for some fan seating close to the action on other sides of the field ...

And yes, as long as the funding is right, there would be locker room facilities in the baseball and softball stadiums. Otherwise, it's an awful long walk from the new softball stadium back to the main athletic facility. ... I don't believe the dining hall that Leavitt is lobbying for is shown in the renderings they have pictured right now.

[Greg Auman]

And keep in mind that nearly all of this is still very conceptual and flexible. The softball field, for instance, has been rotated 90 degrees from its original positioning. And the track facility costs were lowered significantly when they decided to renovate the existing stadium rather than razing it and building the main track in the area north of the current track ...

[bull2saintleo]

The soccer stadium has some cool features planned. Main seating would cover 3,000 fans, enough to be a host site for conference and NCAA postseason events. The smaller buildings to the left and right of the main seating would be the locker rooms, player lounges and coaches' offices for each team. What's more, the design would have the actual field dug into the ground a bit, creating a "Death Valley" type situation. The rendition calls for berms on three sides of the field, which would allow for some fan seating close to the action on other sides of the field ...

.

3,000 seat could also land a United Soccer League First Division team, which is a step below Major League Soccer.  That could give USF some revenue as well.

[ZeroBullChip]

I like how they carry the theme from the Athletic Center to the sun dome and other venues.  It's going to look nice.

[USFan]

Remember that "Place holder" for an OCS on the master plan that was posted on here before? Well it’s not there.

So now we can put that place holder to rest.

[bull2saintleo]

According to the 6/2/2006 St. Pete Times, here are the estimated costs for the athletic facility upgrades (Low and High estimates designated by L and H):

Baseball stadium (L - 8.6 mil, H - 12.5 mil)

Sun Dome facility* (L - 7.9 mil, H - 10.0 mil)

Soccer stadium (L - 4.4 mil, H - 5.1 mil)

Softball stadium (L - 4.1 mil, H - 4.7 mil)

Tennis facility (L - 3.4 mil, H - 4.1 mil)

Track/Field stadium (L - 2.8 mil, H - 3.1 mil)

Rec field replace. (L - 1 mil, H - 1.1 mil)

Football practice (L - 750 thou, H - 930 thou)

Total (L - 33 mil, H - 41.4 mil)

* = covers new facility next to Sun Dome with practice courts, locker rooms, and coach's offices for both basketball teams.  Additional arena renovations projected at 18 million are also in USF's master plan, but are not specifically linked to USF's athletic teams.

[Apis Bull]

According to the 6/2/2006 St. Pete Times, here are the estimated costs for the athletic facility upgrades (Low and High estimates designated by L and H):

Baseball stadium (L - 8.6 mil, H - 12.5 mil)

Sun Dome facility* (L - 7.9 mil, H - 10.0 mil)

Soccer stadium (L - 4.4 mil, H - 5.1 mil)

Softball stadium (L - 4.1 mil, H - 4.7 mil)

Tennis facility (L - 3.4 mil, H - 4.1 mil)

Track/Field stadium (L - 2.8 mil, H - 3.1 mil)

Rec field replace. (L - 1 mil, H - 1.1 mil)

Football practice (L - 750 thou, H - 930 thou)

Total (L - 33 mil, H - 41.4 mil)

* = covers new facility next to Sun Dome with practice courts, locker rooms, and coach's offices for both basketball teams.  Additional arena renovations projected at 18 million are also in USF's master plan, but are not specifically linked to USF's athletic teams.

Looks like these are taken care of.  If about $1 million is going to the football practice fields, that leaves about $2 million from the Morsanis for the softball stadium.  Where is the other $2.1 - $2.7 million coming from?

[Cubanbull]

So i post same picture on the Big east website and a few hours later guess who comes around posting? Our old friend Sir Galahad/STK saying we only have 10% funding. I guess UCF has 100% funding for all their additions.

[Bullpride08]

So i post same picture on the Big east website and a few hours later guess who comes around posting? Our old friend Sir Galahad/STK saying we only have 10% funding. I guess UCF has 100% funding for all their additions.

Yeah, ask him how much funds raised they have for the Convocation Center?  Hmmm, the last I remember they were passing ownership to an third party GC, and were underwriting a mess of bonds for it, with much of the income generation coming from rental of local on-campus retail surrounding the Center.  SO, you could say they had less than 10% of the financing raised for the Convocation Center if you looked at it from a purely equity standpoint, BUT, given the fact they raised bonds (which is something we WILL BE DOING TOO) then they have a 100%!  Is Galasnad using a semantical argument or is he purely 100% ignorant?  The latter of course.  There is no problem with how UCF generated their funds to build (don't go anal UCF fans, I know on the other board I grabbed your goat because I questioned the use of on-campus retail rental revenue- which I still say is a rather riskier proposition and a situation where the University is actually forgoing income for athletics- which in that case I do appreciate).  I bet they don't have more than 15% of equity raised for their stadium, but that doesn't mean it won't get built or they won't get the remaining financing, that's coming from a bond issue, again they'll have 100% of the financing with a blend of debt and equity.  Nothing at all wrong with that but he's being a hypocritical idiot for chastizing us for doing the same.

USF will get all of this done.  There are more donors they are working on as we speak.  There's still naming rights for the Dome and possibly 1-2 of the other stadiums that corporations are interested in (soccer was brought up since it could be multi-purposed as a valuable naming commodity).  Also, the University will be chipping in some dollars too, from my understanding moving/replacing the rec fields, and tennis facilities are considered intra-mural, student amenities as well as athletic.  Therefore the University can contribute dollars for that which can help.

I expect within a year or so they'll have raised what they can and the rest will be financed with a bond offering in an amount we're capable of covering the debt service on.  Future donations, as is the case with the Athletic Facility, will simply go toward reducing the debt when possible.