Time for Plan B (stadium)

[UA_MA_2000]

Maybe they can squeeze $5-$10 million out of the general campus renovation item in the budget. It would be a renovation and one that is badly needed. The visitor's bleacher are honestly a danger. That, coupled with donations they have already received (not sure how much they have), should be more than enough to get 10,000 seats and field turf on University Field.

 

A couple of years ago, giving Sefcu the naming rights of the RACC got us $2.75million.

 

How about forging ahead with this relationship, bringing it to the next level?

10million for 10 years of naming rights for the renovated football facility, calling it SEFCU Stadium?

 

Let's giving them naming rights to the Bubble and other buildings as well. We can call our athletic facilities, collectively, the "SEFCU EMPIRE" or "SEFCU's PURPLE DEATH STAR."

[danefan]

At least that photo of university field doesn't show the real condition of the track!

 

 

Hoover Stadium - $3.2 million for the track, stands, press box, field, and ticket booths.. I can't imagine the costs of the same project would be any more today due to the economic crunch.

 

University field needs that type of setup - a quality renovation. It would be great as a mini-stadium when we get the big boy.

 

I'm sure that the AD could generate a sum of 3.2 million for this cause. They must have collected something in the stadium fund over the last 4 years.

 

I would be willing to bet there is $3.2 million already raised or at least pledged. But that is just a guess. We really have no clue. Which is another problem in and of itself.

[Clickclack]

Total deja vu...don't we go through one of these threads every month or so.....same story every time. We link to other stadiums/schools web sites, we voice our grievances, we pound our fists and gnash our teeth, we write to the local papers and contact our state representatives and in the end.....NOTHING! The anger/outrage needs to be directed at the local officials who've allowed the state to support Buffalo and Stony Brook disproportionately who have combined for single digits in conference titles while UA has won 40 and has 18 post season appearances (various sports).

 

This is an outrage!

 

As we speak, Stony Brook is doing a major renovation to their basketball arena and those losers have NEVER WON A THING (in m-basketball)!

 

We need to start some kind of grass roots organizing campaign, start with those of us who are on this board and coordinate our letter writing campaigns, e-mails, phone calls etc. to the local politicians.

[danefan]

Total deja vu...don't we go through one of these threads every month or so.....same story every time. We link to other stadiums/schools web sites, we voice our grievances, we pound our fists and gnash our teeth, we write to the local papers and contact our state representatives and in the end.....NOTHING! The anger/outrage needs to be directed at the local officials who've allowed the state to support Buffalo and Stony Brook disproportionately who have combined for single digits in conference titles while UA has won 40 and has 18 post season appearances (various sports).

 

This is an outrage!

 

As we speak, Stony Brook is doing a major renovation to their basketball arena and those losers have NEVER WON A THING (in m-basketball)!

 

We need to start some kind of grass roots organizing campaign, start with those of us who are on this board and coordinate our letter writing campaigns, e-mails, phone calls etc. to the local politicians.

 

What about starting with with our own Admins? Why can't they provide a public update on the status of the stadium project? The budget is passed and doesn't have funding. There isn't any political gain to be made now, is there?

 

We can write all the politicians we want but until there is a public plan in place it makes it a little hard to argue for anything specific.

[ATL_DANE]

Best high school football stadiums

 

Just a sampling of the many, many high schools that smoke New York's state university. UAlbany is a center for America's largest state univerisity and this is what they have to show the rest of the country. Its a disgrace.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/...tory?id=3653316

 

My next step is to find junior high schools with better facilities. Hah ha, I bet they exist!

[uofalbany]

We need to convince the administration that a renovation is needed now, while we campaign and generate funding for the all purpose stadium in 3-5 years. Danefan is right. Without having a plan to support, there's nothing to support. The design, model, costs for a stadium haven't even been made public. Why would anyone listen?'

 

Convince the admistration of the renovation now.

 

Strike a deal with the firm that's doing the site design / analysis / model. The administration can ask for a 'killer' deal on a quick but quality bleacher renovation for both sidelines, with the promise that they will be the ones who build the 60 million dollar stadium in a few years, when we get the funds.

[madDOG]

 

LOL!

 

I friggen love the lone bleacher in the middle of the visiting side.

[MRSGDG]

I am not trying to be negative, just responding to the suggestions and trying to see if they are legitimate things the school could actually do given it is a state entity.

 

I don’t know exactly how the state does financing but from what I understand, here are my thoughts. A lot of "I think" or "I believe" are used in my response so for those who know for sure the specifics please correct me.

 

 

 

It's time for an incremental approach. If we asked for a few million here and then next year ask for a few million there you'd be more likely to get it. Stony Brook received a few million to enlarge their NEW stadium and they got it. Granted, LI seems to care about their SUNY Center but it’s an approach that seems to work.

 

Drop the "big bang" approach and ask for a few million every year or other year. That is the approach that will work. Someone needs to get through to UAlbany and the Albany area politicians. Enough is enough.

 

We use that renovation for football until we can accumulate enough money for the NEW stadium.

When we get the new stadium built, then the OLD renovated stadium is used for soccer and track.

 

Funding aint coming through the state government anytime soon.... certainly not amounts that we would be looking for in a one year package. It will need to be accumulated over 5 years or so. I don't believe we are going to get 1 or 2 donations of 20 million each either.

 

Isn’t the $60Million number the Athletic Complex not just the new Football Stadium? Just wanting to double check because it seems like they are being transposed, and saying that the Football Stadium was the $60M project, when I thought it was for the Athletic Complex, which is more than just the Stadium.

 

Before this fiscal crisis getting $5-10M for a renovation project might have been feasible…but now, everyone is fighting for every last $1M they can get their hands on. It might not be as easy in 2010-11 as people think to get $5-10M. But who knows…

 

I don’t know if I agree with the thought that we should ask the legislature for $5-10M for renovations, and actually expect them to fund $60M in the next three to five years for an entire new stadium. Don’t you think they would look at it like “Wait didn’t you just come to us a few years ago asking for renovation money and now you want 6x as much to build a whole new stadium? So basically the $5-10M we gave you was a waste? No thanks, I’m not going to fund your project.”? Even if we did use the ‘old’ stadium (if the space didn’t end up being used at all for the complex) for soccer and track it could still be a hard sell.

 

As for accumulating funds from the state, and for example asking for $5M each year till we hit our amount we need and just banking the money…. I don’t believe that is how the state funds projects.…..Now if the school created a “$60M Phase Athletic Complex Project”, that might work…you go to the legislature with a plan in 3-4 phases, each with a separate cost. You might be able to fund Phase 1 one fiscal year, and then ask for Phase 2 the next year and so one. But you would have to show that they are true phases and that each amount of money is only going to that specific phase. Contracts and procurement in the state are really complicated, especially when talking about a project of this amount of money.

 

As a note, I know that this is technically Phase 2 of the overall athletic facilities upgrade plan, but I was referring to the $60M “project”.

 

The anger/outrage needs to be directed at the local officials who've allowed the state to support Buffalo and Stony Brook disproportionately who have combined for single digits in conference titles while UA has won 40 and has 18 post season appearances (various sports).

 

This is an outrage!

 

The number of titles the school wins doesn't resonate with the majority of legislators. The only ones that care will about the number of titles will be local ones. Now something like Nano could resonate with legislators outside of the Cap Region because the economic growth & it helps the entire state. Even though we might think the sport titles will help the entire state, it probably would be a hard sell...

 

Maybe part reason could be that Buffalo and SB got those things could be that the schools lobby their local legislators better, and inform them more often than ours.

 

Also, our Gov Relations people lobbied for their top projects last year, and the stadium wasn't the top priority. So the school Gov Relations people did their job...they got their top projects funded ie....Business school and Campus Center.

 

If the Complex was the top of the list maybe wouldn’t be where we are at now. But the school did get what it asked for.

 

Strike a deal with the firm that's doing the site design / analysis / model. The administration can ask for a 'killer' deal on a quick but quality bleacher renovation for both sidelines, with the promise that they will be the ones who build the 60 million dollar stadium in a few years, when we get the funds.

 

I don’t think UAlbany can strike a "deal" with any firm. According to NYS Procurement laws these types of projects have to be bid or use an OGS Contractor, etc... Because UA is a state entity they can not do what private colleges can do, money the school spends comes with rules attached.

[danefan]

$65 million was requested this year for the stadium complex.

 

From what I remember that would include a connection to the RACC and upgraded concessions in the RACC as well. The bulk ($45million) was stadium cost.

 

 

MsGDG - I agree with you on most of your post above. SUNY doesn't work like a normal business or a normal university. That's part of the #1 problem with the SUNY system.

 

Think about this - if the school went out and privately fundraised $30 million to build the stadium, they would still have to go through the horrendously corrupt procurement process to contract with a firm to build it. Even though not one single dime of state funding would be used to build it.

 

An amendment to this process was proposed in this year's budget but did not get passed. There was no commentary describing why it was denied.

 

 

I've been saying this for years - the master plan developed by Sasaki was flawed from the start. It was great for a non SUNY school but it never had a chance at Albany.

 

It makes ABSOLUTELY no sense whatsoever to have separate football, lacrosse and soccer facilities. You are relying on state funding to build redundant facilities. It will never happen. Not even $tony Broke had the gall to ask for that.

 

 

Another problem -

I would like someone to find me an FCS stadium for a limited-scholly team that cost $45 million. You'll never find it. Even full scholarship teams that compete for NATIONAL TITLES don't have $45 million stadiums built all in one shot. Montana is the prime example. They built a modest stadium many years ago with private funding. They have proven that they can sell it out and when they have demand for additional season tickets they build more seats. The same idea could be used to build around University field.

 

Build 10,000 now. Add 10,000 more later if we sell out the 10,000 every game for 2 years.

[Phoenix]

Strike a deal with the firm that's doing the site design / analysis / model. The administration can ask for a 'killer' deal on a quick but quality bleacher renovation for both sidelines, with the promise that they will be the ones who build the 60 million dollar stadium in a few years, when we get the funds.

 

As MsGDG mentioned...pretty confident that is illegal under NYS Ethics/Procurement Law...it's the same type of thing that got Hitchcock in trouble when a construction company (?..or some other building entity) funded/was asked to fund an endowed professorship for the rights to construct on campus (I think it was Empire Commons?)...the whole 'we'll help you out if you help us out while shutting out everyone else' is what gets a lot of people in trouble in the state.

[danefan]

Strike a deal with the firm that's doing the site design / analysis / model. The administration can ask for a 'killer' deal on a quick but quality bleacher renovation for both sidelines, with the promise that they will be the ones who build the 60 million dollar stadium in a few years, when we get the funds.

 

As MsGDG mentioned...pretty confident that is illegal under NYS Ethics/Procurement Law...it's the same type of thing that got Hitchcock in trouble when a construction company (?..or some other building entity) funded/was asked to fund an endowed professorship for the rights to construct on campus (I think it was Empire Commons?)...the whole 'we'll help you out if you help us out while shutting out everyone else' is what gets a lot of people in trouble in the state.

 

 

Yes - the whole doing business the rest of the world does business does violate the procurement laws. Part of the reason

why the NYS budget is a complete mess.

[ATL_DANE]

Based on all the feedback I've heard, what the university should be doing is moving toward the $60M complex but doing it in phases. Maybe divide the complex into 4 distince phases with their own price tag. It would make the project easier to get funded by the legislator. Four separate $15M requests over the course of 10 years should be the goal. It also eliminates the sticker shock and media magnet.

 

This is the benefit of both worlds. The funding request is smaller so we would have a better chance of funding while moving to a permenent situation.

[danefan]

Based on all the feedback I've heard, what the university should be doing is moving toward the $60M complex but doing it in phases. Maybe divide the complex into 4 distince phases with their own price tag. It would make the project easier to get funded by the legislator. Four separate $15M requests over the course of 10 years should be the goal. It also eliminates the sticker shock and media magnet.

 

This is the benefit of both worlds. The funding request is smaller so we would have a better chance of funding while moving to a permenent situation.

 

 

do a phased project to try and build a $65 million stadium and we'll be getting splinters in our butts for the next 10 years while Coach Ford retires and our football team sinks into oblivion.

 

Earth needs to be moved and it needs to be moved soon.

[uofalbany]

I don’t think UAlbany can strike a "deal" with any firm. According to NYS Procurement laws these types of projects have to be bid or use an OGS Contractor, etc...

 

Think about this - if the school went out and privately fundraised $30 million to build the stadium, they would still have to go through the horrendously corrupt procurement process to contract with a firm to build it. Even though not one single dime of state funding would be used to build it.

 

As I know nothing about this process, can you guys/gals explain the procurement process in detail?

 

What's an OGS contractor?

 

Who oversees the process? Do they get anything out of it financially (UAlbany paying something to a State entity)?

 

 

 

And I agree, dirt does need to be moved, and moved quickly.

Our biggest asset is Coach Ford and the success he brings to the program.

[danefan]

Here is a very comparable project:

 

Southern Illinois Saluki Way

 

http://siusalukis.cstv.com/ot/salukiway.html

 

The stadium will cost $25 million.