A committee looking at the feasibility of constructing a $250 million on-campus stadium at Colorado State University told president Tony Frank that the project meets his predetermined criteria for being built.
“There’s some real excitement,” Amy Parsons, the co-chair of the 15-member stadium advisory committee said Thursday night. “There are significant challenges along with the significant opportunities, but we believe the project is feasible.”
Although Frank will now consult with the university’s board of governors, the final decision on whether the project moves forward will be his.
“I don’t intend to be hurried,” Frank said at the end of the meeting, “but I don’t want this to continue dominating discussions at the university the way that it has.
“I don’t anticipate deciding within the month of August, but I anticipate and will do all that’s within my power to have a decision before the board of governors meeting in October.”
The committee gave Frank a 116-page feasibility study, along with a seven-volume, 2,500-page engagement report that includes virtually anything said, written or investigated during the seven-month project.
Frank had given the committee four parameters:
• That the stadium wouldn’t be placed on existing open green space.
• That it wouldn’t hinder views of the mountains.
• That the committee take into “serious” account any impact on neighbors adjacent to or near a new stadium.
• That funding the project would not rely on appropriation, tuition, fees or taxes.
That last point became a concern late in the process, with new-stadium supporters allowing that it might be necessary to sell bonds in support of the project. Frank said that was the aspect of the endeavor that caused him to “lie awake in my bed at night.”
If the stadium doesn’t generate the revenue streams projected by consultants, it’s possible that the shortfall would have to come from general university funds, Frank said last week at a public forum.
According to the committee, the projected revenue sources for the new stadium, incuding areas like naming rights and private donations range from $173 million to $437 million. Those numbers, they argue, would make such backstopping unnecessary.
Ever since the idea of a new stadium was floated, there has been a well-organized opposition. Most of that group would like CSU to stay in the Rams’ current home, Hughes Stadium, and devote any spending to renovating that structure, which is south of the campus next to the mountains.
On Thursday, members of the school’s stadium operations department said it would cost about $30 million over the next 10 years to make updates and improvements to the 44-year-old facility. They then estimated the cost of adding another 12,000-17,000 seats, bringing it in line with the capacity of the proposed new stadium, at somewhere between $80 million and $105 million.
