East Hartford’s Rentschler Field needs $63 million upgrade, new study says. ‘like walking into a time capsule’

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Good job, your post is by far the dumbest post of the year. You opinion is 180 degrees opposite from what the coaching staff, almost all on campus students, the players, and most importantly future recruits all want. Do you honestly think Calhoun would have had 4 NC’s if Gampel was built on Pratt & Whitney field?

Calhoun and his guys would've won playing anywhere, including the moon.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

Calhoun and his guys would've won playing anywhere, including the moon.

You completely missed my point, which is that JC would not have been playing with the same guys he won his NC’s with. Mora’s recruiting would go so much easier with an on campus stadium to pitch to recruits.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

You completely missed my point, which is that JC would not have been playing with the same guys he won his NC’s with. Mora’s recruiting would go so much easier with an on campus stadium to pitch to recruits.

I didn't miss your point - I was just having some fun, but honestly I don't think it matters all that much. Recruits go where they feel like they're home, have a great support system, feel like they can take their game to a new level, get their needed playing time, and have a shot at the next level. Would it be easier? Yes, but not significantly. We have other aspects in terms of challenges to football recruiting (i.e. lack of 1A/FBS history, lack of (recent) success, a decade of bad coaching hires, lack of conference fit since the BE collapsed, lack of in-state recruiting successes/relatively small number of D1 players as compared to other states, relatively small interest in college football in our state, etc etc). Bottom line - we are fighting an up-hill battle. BUT, with the right coaching and leadership, the hill can be climbed. It was done in the RE-1 era and it can be done again.

 

[ScottVib]

You completely missed my point, which is that JC would not have been playing with the same guys he won his NC’s with. Mora’s recruiting would go so much easier with an on campus stadium to pitch to recruits.

You mean the guys who were recruited after more than a decade of playing the biggest Big East games even further off campus at the Civic Center?

 

[CL82]

Alternate access link here <<<

-> “Looking at the financial picture of our athletics program as a whole, I think there things we do that make it look much more precarious than it really is,” said Dan Toscano, UConn Board of Trustees chairman. “We may be the only program in the country, a state university that plays in a state-owned facility and has to pay rent for it. It’s sort of right pocket, left pocket. The unintended consequence is, it shows up in our financial statements and you have people saying, my God your’re running this huge deficit. I say, if we get funding from the state and we turn around and pay $5 million back to the state, not a dollar of the $5 million has actually changed hands. And yet, you’re creating a big hole.

“I find that whole thing somewhat odd. At some point we’ll try to sit down with OPM and the CRDA folks and the governor’s office and figure it out once and for all.” <-

-> The legislative session will kick off in January and the CRDA will soon have an idea what's available to finance the work. Gov. Lamont has been vocal supporter of Mora and UConn football, but it is a challenging economic time to seek funds for a sports venue. Freimuth and the CRDA are preparing for scenarios in which the state offers less funding. The priorities are the roof and the technology issues, so those will be top-of-the-list issues.<-

-> “Right now, it’s the only place that we have an option to play football,” Toscano said. “We can play basketball on our campus when you think about XL (Center) being part of the CRDA landscape, we have options for that. And come Jan. 14, we’ll have options for hockey as well. But when it comes to football, that is our sole venue.

“I think the state will decide how it moves forward and we’ll adapt to that. I don’t know what that is. I think ultimately that will a Governor and Speaker of the House discussion about what they want to do.” <-

(Keep the partisan politics out of any discussion)

It sounds as if Toscano is going to take on the status quo regarding the way the university pays for state owned facilities. I note his comments that for basketball and hockey we have other alternatives and his squarely addressing the bizarre way the finances are currently being run. To me that’s a good thing, though long overdue.

 

[ZooCougar]

No, I’m literally reading the language that was posted. It lays out two alternatives one is that the broadcaster upgrade the cabling and the other is that the CDRA does it at a cost of about 2 million. If CBS Sportsnet decides it’s more convenient for them to have cabling in place, and want to put it in, God bless. if not, I go back to my question from several posts ago, what businesses have chosen not to use Rentschler field because it wasn’t pre-wired with fiber optics. The answer to that question needs to be something more than “well golly we imagine that if we had it we would get more people.”

Yeah I’m so sure CBS Sportsnet would prefer the cost of them setting up thousands of feed of cable for days before the game versus having a a permanently installed system that every other modern stadium already has.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

You mean the guys who were recruited after more than a decade of playing the biggest Big East games even further off campus at the Civic Center?

Yes I do, the guys who played only 1/4 of their games at the Civic Center. Lol

 

[UConnJim]

It's kind of funny. When organizations have an old facility, they understand that there are annual repair and maintenance expenses that are pretty significant. When they replace the old facility with a new one, somehow they think they will not have repair and maintenance expenses in the future. In fact, many organizations justify the new facility by saying they are spending so much on repair and maintenance that there are cost savings to build a new one. The reality is that the maintenance costs should be similar if you are maintaining the new facility correctly, but the repair bills are smaller until the facility ages. But, do organizations accrue for the future higher repair and maintenance costs after they finish the new facility? Of course not.

Unfortunately, the Rent has reached the age that you can't really defer repairs anymore and things need to be fixed. $64 million over 5 years doesn't seem to be a large number to me. If you had a 30 year old facility that cost $100 million is being depreciated over 30 years that's $3.3 million per year. The problem is they didn't accrue for the future expenses and repair bills are back end loaded.

 

[CL82]

Yeah I’m so sure CBS Sportsnet would prefer the cost of them setting up thousands of feed of cable for days before the game versus having a a permanently installed system that every other modern stadium already has.

Prefer is an interesting word. Isn’t it? Very squishy and noncommittal.

 

[noeynox]

Nor is it Nantucket. Storrs is lonely, it needs a beautiful stadium to fill its woods and fields. When? Put the plans together and then lets see where alignment leads us by 2030 or so. The great reorg of the ACC should be underway about 2-4 years before the end of the ACC deal and we should have a stadium plan on hand if it helps.

So be proactive instead of reactive for once?

 

[John]

It's kind of funny. When organizations have an old facility, they understand that there are annual repair and maintenance expenses that are pretty significant. When they replace the old facility with a new one, somehow they think they will not have repair and maintenance expenses in the future. In fact, many organizations justify the new facility by saying they are spending so much on repair and maintenance that there are cost savings to build a new one. The reality is that the maintenance costs should be similar if you are maintaining the new facility correctly, but the repair bills are smaller until the facility ages. But, do organizations accrue for the future higher repair and maintenance costs after they finish the new facility? Of course not.

Unfortunately, the Rent has reached the age that you can't really defer repairs anymore and things need to be fixed. $64 million over 5 years doesn't seem to be a large number to me. If you had a 30 year old facility that cost $100 million is being depreciated over 30 years that's $3.3 million per year. The problem is they didn't accrue for the future expenses and repair bills are back end loaded.

It's the UConn way, they didn't adequately budget for the UConn 2000 maintenance either.

 

[gampelcrazies]

Crazy possible outcome; operations of the Rent are given to the university to manage?!?!?

That would be a game changer

 

[How Sway?!]

agree on what is that based on?

I do think the infrastructure would be costly

I will say in some states it could be built at
Protective Stadium

Team: UAB Blazers

Capacity: 47,100

Cost: 174 Million

Opening Date: July 7th, 2021
Let's be honest in Connecticut it would be double the price due to Connecticut laws.

Couple of things to put in context the price:

1) The union density in CT is about 3 times as high as that of Alabama, so Labor costs are much higher. Now there are plenty of economic studies showing the pros and cons of unions but just for the sake of simplicity I'll focus on the higher labor costs.

2) The Stadium started construction during a favorable economic environment. Not only that but material costs at that time were probably 50% of what they are now when you consider the supply chain problems we have now and the depressed market that was in place at the beginning of the pandemic.

When you consider both of those points, if UAB were to build that same stadium starting now, Im pretty sure they would be looking at at least double the price tag.

 

[Redding Husky]

I’m a little surprised by this. SMU’s stadium had the same architect and was completed in 2000. It still looks great, although they are talking about expansion.

 

[John]

I’m a little surprised by this. SMU’s stadium had the same architect and was completed in 2000. It still looks great, although they are talking about expansion.

Is SMU doing yearly routine maintenance or deferring it?

 

[Nostical]

Do you have a source for this? I haven’t heard anything that would lead me to believe they would support us joining the ACC.

Other than you no one, especially at BC, say they want to establish a regional rivalry with UConn. In most cases just the opposite.

Yes, a former BC Captain very much inside the program. He told me BC is now "strongly" in favor of adding UConn to an expanded ACC. In fact he said it's going to happen whenever the opportunity arises and I pressed him on that statement. BC supports regional rivalries for their students and fans (easier access to games) and the synergies created among "local rivals" rather than trying to form them with "the Georgia and Virginia Techs". As I said before, my conversation wasn't at a car wash, it was at dinner--- and like most of you I still have a "show me" attitude toward any pronouncements--- but I'm going with it for now.

Here's the more important issue. We need to build momentum now for a campus stadium study and a serious move to make it happen. Let me put it this way, if the B1G or ACC ever called and said 'you guys are in-- but we need you to have an on campus stadium for 45,000', would we say "no, never mind, we have traffic issues near the campus and we love our students bussing to East Hartford. Oh, and BTW, we can fix the leaks in our old stadium for only $63M"?
Let's prepare to meet the moment.

 

[ScottVib]

Yes I do, the guys who played only 1/4 of their games at the Civic Center. Lol

Fun fact.. the 99 National Champion team played 8 games at The Civic Center. They played 7 at Gampel, but don’t let facts get in the way of a good argument.

The 2004 national champions played 10 in Hartford, 8 in Gampel.

The 2011 champs 10 in Hartford, 7 in Gampel

 

[CL82]

Yes, a former BC Captain very much inside the program. He told me BC is now "strongly" in favor of adding UConn to an expanded ACC. In fact he said it's going to happen whenever the opportunity arises and I pressed him on that statement. BC supports regional rivalries for their students and fans (easier access to games) and the synergies created among "local rivals" rather than trying to form them with "the Georgia and Virginia Techs". As I said before, my conversation wasn't at a car wash, it was at dinner--- and like most of you I still have a "show me" attitude toward any pronouncements--- but I'm going with it for now.

This is actually a huge deal, if accurate. Like you, I have a healthy skepticism about the change in attitude, but the conversation seemed very unequivocal.

 

[Patman]

This is actually a huge deal, if accurate. Like you, I have a healthy skepticism about the change in attitude, but the conversation seemed very unequivocal.

Blowing up the big east was never long term wise for anybody but Miami and I predicted THAT way back when it happened still new to UConn as a graduate student. So far I've been more or less right that realignment has helped none of the northeast schools.

The Boston College people at the time were running off their own smug fumes that they thought that they were so special that they could thrive anywhere. NOPE!

 

[CL82]

realignment has helped none of the northeast schools.

You mean, other than financially.

 

[Patman]

You mean, other than financially.

how many wins did that buy them?

 

[CL82]

how many wins did that buy them?

I don’t disagree, but they’ve made literally hundreds of millions of dollars by virtue of making that jump

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Fun fact.. the 99 National Champion team played 8 games at The Civic Center. They played 7 at Gampel, but don’t let facts get in the way of a good argument.

The 2004 national champions played 10 in Hartford, 8 in Gampel.

The 2011 champs 10 in Hartford, 7 in Gampel

It must be the new math where 1/2 = 1/4.

 

[UCTitleTown]

Let it fall down. Build an on-campus stadium if the university really wants football. I was at UNC recently. While they are not a top ACC program (an occasional good year scattered amongst mostly mediocre ones), the stadium is literally next to dorms on the heart of the campus. I'd love something like that at UConn.

 

[buddy]

Yes, a former BC Captain very much inside the program. He told me BC is now "strongly" in favor of adding UConn to an expanded ACC. In fact he said it's going to happen whenever the opportunity arises and I pressed him on that statement. BC supports regional rivalries for their students and fans (easier access to games) and the synergies created among "local rivals" rather than trying to form them with "the Georgia and Virginia Techs". As I said before, my conversation wasn't at a car wash, it was at dinner--- and like most of you I still have a "show me" attitude toward any pronouncements--- but I'm going with it for now.

Here's the more important issue. We need to build momentum now for a campus stadium study and a serious move to make it happen. Let me put it this way, if the B1G or ACC ever called and said 'you guys are in-- but we need you to have an on campus stadium for 45,000', would we say "no, never mind, we have traffic issues near the campus and we love our students bussing to East Hartford. Oh, and BTW, we can fix the leaks in our old stadium for only $63M"?
Let's prepare to meet the moment.

I think BC needs to worry about their own membership in the ACC. If UConn is warming up to UConn it is likely because they recognize their geographic outlier status in the ACC. It is obvious that they do not bring the TV viewers to warrant their membership. I am not sure what sway that have any longer. Furthermore, any new additions would have to deal with the southern cartel, which may be reluctant to add more schools from the north.