Retiring UF athletics director Jeremy Foley has previously mentioned the development of a “master plan” to upgrade numerous facilities, but on Friday afternoon, the school officially announced a proposed plan for a number of facilities upgrades – including a stand-alone facility of about 100,000 square feet for the football team.
The location of the football facility would be in the region facing 2nd Avenue next to the Sanders Practice Fields and Percy Beard Track - where the throw areas for the track and field team currently reside - giving Jim McElwain and his football program a centralized location for daily activities. Currently, the Gators conduct many of their workouts and meetings inside of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
The new football facility would include a team locker room, weight room, training room, team meeting rooms, offices, recruiting lounge and an open foyer area for trophy display, among other features, according to UF executive associate athletics director for internal affairs Chip Howard.
“We’re going to build something really nice,” Foley said. “We’re not big bells and whistle people. The fact of the matter, to fulfill Coach McElwain’s vision, we don’t have enough space. And you know something, we could have knocked down some walls here, and we probably could have spent $20 million dollars, $25 million dollars, done some different things. We got some room to expand offices and we could have, you know something, after spending 25, you would have had something that was just OK. Just nice. Who wants to spend that kind of money and say it’s nice. We have never done that around here. We’ll build something that the football team can really use and be really good. That’s kind of what we do.”
Overall, the proposed facility master plan is estimated at $100 million and will impact three major facilities for football, baseball and softball, while providing opportunities to enhance some of UF’s other facilities. In addition to the stand-alone football facility, the baseball and softball stadiums would receive renovations, a new UAA dining facility would be built, the current football offices would be converted into administrative offices, and the current South End Zone weight room and training room would be renovated for use by all student-athletes.
Florida recognizes that it has other needs besides football, baseball and softball but has identified those three as the highest priority projects as this time, as Foley mentioned back in June during his retirement press conference.
“We’ve been working on this 12 months,” Foley said. “You asked about is it my parting deal. We’ve been working on a master plan for 12 months. We’ve told you that, we’ve told or coaches that, Chip’s has been working his tail off on it. And it’s finally come in and we have made a priority.
“This stuff’s legit and we have a history here of when we make a move we go get it done, so I’m confident we’ll get these things done. Certainly as it relates to my situation, a new athletic director is going to bring these things home, obviously with Chip and the rest of the staff around here. But I think there’s a lot of momentum building in our program on different levels and I think these things are going to keep us moving forward, so we’re excited about them.”
As for the baseball renovations, there will be an expansion of the team areas, an addition of a team meeting room, team lounge, locker room and more office space for additional staff members. Also included are a new entryway, 400 club seats and a renovation of the press box. Overall, the baseball stadium renovation should increase its seating capacity to anywhere from 5,500 to 6,000.
“Renovate the press box and then create about 400 or so club seats that would be maybe up underneath the overhang and have a roof structure,” Howard said. “Then in leftfield, probably bring this area up to the same level as the Dizney Plaza, so you don’t have all the step-downs and step-ups and make it more fan-friendly. In leftfield, you kind of have a little area there for fans in leftfield. I really think the components of it were what he fans need but also what Coach needs. Both of those are drivers to it.”
For softball, the stadium renovation would increase the seating capacity to about 2,500.
“Softball, a lot of what we've been talking about lately with our original study was expansion of the seating area, which we really need,” Howard said. “And then because of that, you need additional restrooms and concession spaces. A shading structure for three of the sections there behind home plate and to the first- and third-base side. Offices that would be down there, team locker rooms, visitor team locker room and a meeting room that could function during regionals as a media room for interviews after postseason. All those different elements, same type that are going into baseball, will be going into softball."
Currently, there isn’t a timetable to begin construction, as it will be contingent on the funding of the project and how much fundraising the school is able to generate. HOK created UF's renderings for the proposed master plan, but the school will continue to partake in a vetting process to determine the final planning firm.
"I think each project's unique, but when you look at the timing of it, specifically for softball and baseball, that's their competitive home as well as their practice home, so you can have a field, but if you're going to get in there and get it done, you're going to need to get it done from mid-June until the beginning of February," Howard said. "Football is a little bit more ... you want to have track have the end of their season and you probably want to have it ready to go in July when they're ready to start up for two-a-days. So the timing of those, baseball, softball and football are different."
Since the beginning of 2015, the UAA has committed approximately $207 million to facility upgrades. Overall, the Hawkins Center, indoor practice facility and O’Connell Center projected totaled $107 million. As Florida’s athletics director for two dozen years, Foley has notably been reluctant to take on more than $100 million in debt at a time.
“It’s going to take a combination of bonding and fundraising to make it happen. … We’re going to need Gator Nation’s help,” Foley said. “We're 100 percent committed to these projects. We have looked coaches in the eye and said 'we're going to get it done.' And you can't look coaches in the eye and then five years from now they're not done yet. So we will move as quickly as we can on all of them. Plus, here's the other thing, is, you can sit here and you're talking about some significant projects here. They're all not getting built overnight. We're not a major construction firm. It has to be phased and funding and all those type of things.
“We want to get them going as fast as we can."
