The new tower will feature premium seating inventory including suites, loge boxes, ledge seating, and indoor club, and an east and west deck patio space.
Legends will operate from a new space at the CO-LAB at UNC Charlotte Center City which will serve as the hub for the local sales team. Niners looking for in-person dialogue and more imagery of the new premium spaces will be able to preview them at the sales center in Uptown in early 2025.
So we outsourced the sales of the new premium spaces to Legends (which we knew). And they want to entice you to come to their sales office if you want to see more renderings (sales tactic).
Thatās very business minded of them but doesnāt do much to drum up excitement from the fanbase.
I feel like we manage to suck a lot of the energy out of milestones like this. Even down to releasing it on an absolutely gloomy midweek day (though in fairness this is homecoming week - bad luck there i suppose).
It does. Theyāll probably convert it to another use.
But that seems like yet another cost cutting move.
This project must have really blown up in costs. We had a nice chunk of change to build with. Expected a little bit more than what these two photos suggest.
Hunter just verified it right as I posted:
$70 million. Iām not saying that the design is bad or anything, but damn thatās expensive for whats in those photos.
$70 million. Wow.
We built the entire existing structure for less than that. Inflation is insaneā¦
Edit - we budgeted $65 million for phase 2a / 30k seating and the tower and instead we are getting this for $70 millionā¦ Damn.
What perplexes me is that in the time it will take us to complete this renovation, USF proposes the construction of a new stadium (with more seating than the Rich). I understand that the logistics are a bit more complex when adding to an existing structure while still keeping it in use, but it just seems like we are slow walking this.
I wish I knew the overall strategic plan. Facilities where we are spending $70 mil to add 3k seats makes me wonder if investing more in coaching and players is a better strategy.
I get it. I hate we are the smallest, but itās not like we are making some jump here. Iād rather win.
And I know itās not like we could use these funds that way, just where my head goes.
We arent slow walking - we dont have the money. I hate to be the person that keeps coming back to money but thats it.
we got the initial arch plans and they estimated what it was going to cost. The 60/65 mil figure was thought to cover both the tower and home side expansion and the visitors side. When we got close to the 60 we started the process of contractors and final designs and between the original estimates being low end, adjustments and inflation the price now covered just the tower and and home side expansion. The contractor they picked was in large part under the promises that construction would take place while we played at home. BoT memeber said the construction costs compare equally to other academic and commercial building happening in the state.
I know the plan is to continue to fund raise and to be able to have the rest (however much it is now) to expand the visitors side while equipment is on campus.
Fuller told me himself nothing can be done on our campus without projects being fully funded. I have no idea if they want to avoid issuing bonds due to rate environment or if perhaps they donāt think they can get approved, but I keep saying we just dont have the financial support. Between NIL and increasing the annual budget and doing this. Its just too much and Mike has not found any significant sources of new money. I know part of the plan of this is by building this they add new revenue streams, assuming they get sold.
We are about to embark on the next large campus wide financial campaign like Exponential was - itās going to be over a billion dollars goal and 500 mil of that has already been raised. I am sure athletics has a nice chunk of that. With that said those gifts can take a lifetime to actually come in as they literally include estate planning.
This is why when people have complained about Mikeās hiring of coaches I havenāt really cared - its the lack of new financial resources that has been most concerning about his leadership here. And unlike Judy he has had a seat at the table. Seems like he just cant close. Of this 70 mil - a huge chunk from the state and a huge chunk from bissel and some smaller gifts. Thats it. They were trying to sell and get folks to commit to the suites and lodge boxes - no idea how that went.
All this translates into we have idiots running our AD.
No one was checking these figures?
No one was doing any research?
If we were told or āguessedā it would take $60m and that didnāt even get us to 33% of our capacity goal, then a lot of folks in the AD were asleep at the wheel and need to find new careers.
It isnāt like we hired some small arch shop. They were the experts. We have people that are highly successful in construction that are a part of this from our end. I think its a combo of them going on the low end of their estimates and inflation kick our ass.
Also keep in mind the tower is the large part and most expensive part of this. So it isnāt capacity goal we should be looking at it. There are two sep goals - get tower built and add seats. This is really about the tower and boxes to generate new rev.
Its not going to be āgoneā. It has ALWAYS been planned that the current āpress boxā would remain. Also, for everyone complaining about no pics from the EPIC sideā¦the āfield sideā looks VERY similar to the renderings we got last year. Given this, I suspect the āEPICā view will end up looking very similar to last years renderings as well and my opinion is that it looked really nice.
By failing to lock in additional funding yes. I donāt think anyone had in their planning for inflation to take off like it has though. I put some of the blame on us and some of the blame on just once again being unlucky. Kinda like starting a drive for football during a huge recession.
Start football - Massive Recession
Drop Evergreen - School shooting the same day
Launch new Brand - COVID
Coming off best football season and a bowl game - Recruiting canceled and Season wrecked due to covid
Everytime we have a chance to get some momentum we get screwed.
Underwhelming announcement and why start in August? Just wait until the day after the last home game. Whatās three more months at that point. Itās not the worst looking thing, but it gives me a 3k seats with a an upper deck vibe. Not a tower with suites amd boxes vibe. I guess they have another year of design planning to do, but man is this just like whatever.