Looks like itâs gonna get done. And there is a bunch of interest evidently.
[QUOTE][B]Wake Forest wants to build big addition to football field
Seven-story âDeacon Towerâ would include premium seats, new press box
[I]By Dan Collins, Winston-Salem Journal
August 3, 2006[/I][/B]
One month to the day before the kickoff of its football season, Wake Forest kicked off a fund-raising drive yesterday designed to affect many seasons to come.
The goal is to raise enough money to pay for what the school calls phase three of the Wake Forest University Football Project, the construction of a seven-story Deacon Tower on the home side of Groves Stadium that would include club seats, premium club tables, box suites and a new press box.
Barry Faircloth, the Associate Director of Athletics for Development, said Oct. 1 is the deadline by which Wake Forest will determine if there is sufficient interest as well as financial individual and corporate support for the project. Faircloth said he has already received some pledges, but the fund raiser began in earnest last night with a video presentation and pitch to big-money donors at Bridger Field House.
âThis is a demand-driven project,ââ Faircloth said. âBetween now and Oct. 1, if there is sufficient demand then we will tear down the press box after this season and build the Deacon Tower.
âIf thereâs not enough demand for these seats - which we feel confident there is - then weâll go back and re-evaluate this phase and go in another direction.ââ
Faircloth declined to estimate how much the project would cost, or what he would consider sufficient demand.
Few improvements have been made to Groves Stadium since it opened in 1968. The first phase of the project was completed last August when a brick façade was added around the playing field. The second phase was the installation of Field Turf, which was completed this summer.
Three more phases are planned after the completion of Deacon Tower. The fourth phase would be improving the rest rooms and concession stands, the fifth would provide a new home locker room and new field-level seating and end zone suites and the sixth would to improve the parking lot and expand the Bridger Field House plaza.
Coach Jim Grobe said there has been a dramatic improvement in the on-campus complex, but now is the time to tackle the biggest issue of all, Groves Stadium.
âWeâre going into our sixth season with the current staff, and weâve had an ongoing plan for football,ââ Grobe said. âWe had two problems when we got here. First of all we had to start playing better football. We had to establish a little respect on the football field. And we had a real facilities issue.
âIt was hard to turn in any direction and find facilities that were comparable to what the other teams had in the Atlantic Coast Conference from a football perspective.ââ
The plan is to tear down the original press box, consisting of 7,100 square feet, after the season to make way for Deacon Tower, a building of 122,900 square feet that would feature 22 luxury box suites, 602 outdoor stadium club seats and 12 premium club tables.
A temporary press box would be built from the existing structure for the 2007 season and, according to the plan, Deacon Tower would open by the start of the 2008 season.
âWe see football as an asset and basically what weâre doing is investing in that asset,ââ Faircloth said. âWeâve invested on-campus to those facilities, and now as we look to Groves Stadium weâre making major investments to the football program.ââ
The renovation would not significantly change the number of seats in Groves Stadium, which is around 35,000 counting those available on the hill at the south side of the stadium. Grobe has said many times he doesnât want to make Groves Stadium bigger, just better.
His vision is to make Groves Stadium the Wrigley Field of college football.
âSo itâs kind of a last piece of the puzzle for us,ââ Grobe said. âI think itâs an exciting time for us and over the next three or four years weâre going to take the last step that we need.ââ[/QUOTE]
Link: [URL=http://wakeforestfacilities.com/about.htm][B]The Wake Forest Football Project[/B][/URL]
[QUOTE][B]Renovation of Groves Stadium off to fast start
[I]By Rob Daniels, Staff Writer, Greensboro News-Record
September 20, 2006[/I][/B]
WINSTON-SALEM â Wake Forest has sold almost all of the premium seats â including box suites â that are part of an ambitious renovation at Groves Stadium.
Less than two months after plans were announced, sales likely will exceed expectations and trigger construction contract bids, the head of the campaign said Tuesday.
âWe anticipate being sold out by the Oct. 2 deadline,â said Barry Faircloth, associate athletics director for development.
[B][COLOR=Green]As of Tuesday evening, 50 of the 602 club seats (at $1,100 a year in licensing fees) remained. The 12 club tables ($6,400 apiece) have been sold, and interest has spilled over to a waiting list. Of the 22 box suites, which range in price from $29,750 to $46,750 annually, three are left.
The annual costs are subject to an escalator clause linked to the length of the license, and game tickets are not included in the licensing fees.[/COLOR][/B]
The success of the seating campaign wonât guarantee the Deacon Tower will be built by itself, Faircloth said, but it will permit the project to go out for bidding and should jump-start an additional, largely silent fund-raising campaign.
Wake conducted a feasibility study before announcing the seating plans Aug. 2 and has had estimates on construction costs and donations in hand for months. If all goes according to plan, bids for the 123,000-square-foot, seven-story undertaking will go out next month and will be chosen in November.
Construction would start almost immediately after state high school championship games are played Dec. 9, and would end in June 2008.
âThere are still things that have to fall into place, but the seat sales will be a major success,â Faircloth said.
The effort has fortuitously coincided with the best start to a season by a Wake football team since 1987, when the Deacons began 5-0. The current Demon Deacons are 3-0 for only the third time in the ACC era, which began in 1953.
âWith a combination of the success on the field and the deadline approaching, things have heated up in the past two weeks,â Faircloth said.
The completion of the project in its full form would gain notice in the college football community. The project would be an impressive upgrade for a football program not accustomed to winning.[/QUOTE]
