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Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

Seems fine to me.  As long as a Stadium is coming all this other red tape is whatever…  Now, wait till FAU and the Greeks try to get housing on campus.  Then you'll really see Boca Raton throw a fit..!!
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

I just don't like the fact that FAU is limited as to how many activities it can have in a year when so much investment $ are at stake. Its all about paying for the stadium and raising revenue for the athletic program and all of FAU. This is not PECO money. Much of it will have to be borrowed and paid back with interest. Not to mention the cost of continuous maintenance on the stadium. If FAU is approached to use the stadium for some event like a concert, if all 15 dates have been used up, the university will have to turn down the event. If we aren't expecting football game sellouts in the first few years, this really would make it more difficult to retire the bonds and pay the interest on the bonds.
Just like public stadiums, the university should always be looking for ways to bring revenue in with the stadium. The one clause I do see that is fair is no limit on use when the purpose of the event is primarily for students, family, faculty and staff.

I am hoping that when the I95 ramp is complete, these limitations will be removed.

FAU - THE REAL SLEEPING GIANT
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

illinoisowl said

I am hoping that when the I95 ramp is complete, these limitations will be removed.

Hard to say. I think I read on here how FAU is exempt from paying taxes (i.e. property) to the City yet Boca is expected to provide power, water, etc to the university. I think that figures into this regulation of the number of events we can provide because the City has to provide utilities plus traffic control in the form of (potentially overtime) police officers. I'm sure they're also concerned about property values being affected by too much traffic (the old "no one wants to live next to a busy highway" dilemma) because Boca is crazy conservative about maintaining high property values.
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

Once the stadium is built and you have an event that go over the predetermined number of events what will they do. Probably just fine the University for the event and as long as it has a good attendance to that event whats the big deal.
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

fauowls44 said

owlcountry said

SeminOWL2006 said

A convocation center with 7500 is not even worth the trouble….I mean we already have a renovated arena with 5000.  If it isn't 10k don't bother.

Not a bad point.

Actually it is a bad point.  The Bank United Center on the campus of UM has a seating capacity of 8,000…which they usually don't fill playing in the ACC.  As a market, South Florida has never proven it cares much about college hoops. We don't come close to filling up a 5,000 seat arena.  I don't see how a brand new 7500 seat arena wouldn't be perfect for our program.

UM has 15,000 students so if we were going by their standard (Arena = 1/2 # of students) we would build close to a 15,000 seat arena.  We have to remember that the convocation center is not just about FAU basketball home games.  An FAU B-Ball tournament, concerts, UFC, Graduations (high school and FAU).  7,500 is not a big enough difference with what we have to warrant the $$ that will be spent on it.

Florida Atlantic University Owls
2007 Sun Belt Football Champions 2007 New Orleans Bowl Champions 2008 Motor City Bowl Champions 2011 Sun Belt Basketball Champions No Bowls without Owls
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

SeminOWL2006 said

fauowls44 said

owlcountry said

SeminOWL2006 said

A convocation center with 7500 is not even worth the trouble….I mean we already have a renovated arena with 5000.  If it isn't 10k don't bother.

Not a bad point.

Actually it is a bad point.  The Bank United Center on the campus of UM has a seating capacity of 8,000…which they usually don't fill playing in the ACC.  As a market, South Florida has never proven it cares much about college hoops. We don't come close to filling up a 5,000 seat arena.  I don't see how a brand new 7500 seat arena wouldn't be perfect for our program.

UM has 15,000 students so if we were going by their standard (Arena = 1/2 # of students) we would build close to a 15,000 seat arena.  We have to remember that the convocation center is not just about FAU basketball home games.  An FAU B-Ball tournament, concerts, UFC, Graduations (high school and FAU).  7,500 is not a big enough difference with what we have to warrant the $$ that will be spent on it.

They may only have 15,000 students, but they also have an established program that plays in the ACC.  We have over 25,000 students, play in a mid-major conference, and have never averaged much more then 1,000 per game.  I realize that the building could host other events, but it's not as if our 10K building would be taking acts away from the Bank Atlantic Center, AAA, or the Hard Rock.  You'd get events similar to those that the Bank United Center attracts like cheerleading competitions, family shows, and the occasional comedy show.

I don't think going big is always the best choice.  If we had aimed for the 30,000 seat stadium we are trying to build now instead of a 60,000 seat dome, we'd likely have been playing on campus for years already.  Besides, a new convocation center is years away.  By that time we are ready to build anything, this agreement with the city can easily be renegotiated.
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

New article about the agreement with Boca from the Sun Sentinel:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/sfl-boca-fau-stadium-p102009,0,6351375.story

Deal with city could move FAU stadium project forward
South Florida Sun Sentinel

October 20, 2009


BOCA RATON - Boca Raton and Florida Atlantic University have reached a tentative agreement over the university's construction of a 30,000-seat stadium.

The two sides have been battling in recent years about the city's requirement – included in a 2002 campus development agreement with FAU – that the university not build the stadium until work had begun on an Interstate 95 interchange directly to the FAU campus.

But that planned interchange at Spanish River Boulevard is unfunded with no construction date. At least one projection says it won't be done until 2025. The university hopes to have a new stadium by fall 2011.

"Funding for that interchange is further off than when we would like to play football," said Tom Donaudy, FAU architect.

A new campus development agreement, headed to the City Council next week, drops the interchange requirement. Instead, the university would pay for improvements to the city's traffic signal system on portions of Glades Road, Military Trail, Spanish River Boulevard and Yamato Road to improve traffic flow, especially during stadium events.

In addition, the university has provided a detailed traffic-management plan to handle game-day traffic and would continue contributing money to a shuttle service between the Tri-Rail station at Yamato and the campus.

City officials decided to back away from the I-95 interchange requirement for a number of reasons, said George Brown, deputy city manager. For one thing, the stadium became a top priority for the university.

"The stadium became a more important element to the university itself," Brown said. "Before it was a hazy dream, but now it's a real dream. It became more into focus." The proposed stadium also became smaller, shrinking from 50,000 seats to a maximum of 30,000.

Plus, the university was able to show city officials, through traffic studies, that that other improvements could be made to the city's road network to handle stadium traffic. Those improvements involve upgrading traffic signals. FAU would pay about $1.7 million for those upgrades.

"We're confident it's going to be a very good game-day experience in terms of traffic," Donaudy said.

In the proposed campus development agreement, FAU limits the number of events at the stadium to 15 a year, not including events specifically for students and faculty. The scheduled events would include six FAU football games, only one of which can be held during the week. A maximum of eight Friday-night high school football games could be held. And there could be only one special event per year.

The proposed agreement also would prohibit flashing signs, except for scoreboards, and limit the size of signs on the stadium that would be visible from I-95.

FAU and Boca Raton also would agree to deal with traffic management, law enforcement and emergency services during game days. FAU would be expected to pay the extra costs the city may incur from stadium events. Those costs could include an extra police presence to handle traffic on city streets or having emergency personnel on stand-by at the stadium.

Reaching a resolution with Boca Raton is the first big hurdle in moving forward with the planned stadium, Donaudy said. If funding works out, the university hopes to begin construction next summer.
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

"We're confident it's going to be a very good game-day experience in terms of traffic," Donaudy said.

Would Hope so!

We are certainly setup better than the majority of programs to handle traffiic…and 30k, if it ever gets to that number, will be a breeze - no pun intended. :)
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

With the stadium, yeh we shouldn't have gone for the big one…but if we are to be taken seriously by UCF and USF and not be considered a little brother, we should be trying for an arena that can AT LEAST be easily expanded to 10,000 (i.e make initial seating arrangements for 7500 but allow for seats to be easily added).

Florida Atlantic University Owls
2007 Sun Belt Football Champions 2007 New Orleans Bowl Champions 2008 Motor City Bowl Champions 2011 Sun Belt Basketball Champions No Bowls without Owls
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Re: Stadium agreement with the City of Boca Raton

I still think FAU agreed to too many restrictions. It is very difficult to project very far into the future. If FAU decides it wants, for example, a second midweek game or two special events per year, it has to go back to the city. The city -- politicians -- will want something in return. What does FAU have to trade? The second problem remains the precedent; FAU has acknowledged, presumably legally, that the city has a veto over activity on the FAU campus.
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