Yeah, that whole “free land in East Hartford“ always struck me as being meaningless since there are three sites in Storrs that are suitable for a stadium and are already owned by the University. For what it’s worth they still exist. They are the Separatist Tract, Horsebarn Hill, and the Mansfield Training property. Of the three I prefer the Separatist Tract as the most logical. That way the parking for the football stadium could also be used for the baseball and hockey facility, and gamble for that matter. If you’ve ever been on the Penn State campus that’s the way they approach it and their athletic quarter is very nice.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say Gameday on campus was “pretty much done.“ There was a lot of energy as we headed into D1 status. Memorial stadium was packed.
As for the “downstaters argument“ I think that’s a little bit of revisionist history. No one was making that argument at the time, at least to my memory. Instead, the big argument was that Rentschler Field was going to be an economic engine for East Hartford. Now, 20 years later, there are a lot of people who say, I won’t travel 30 minutes further six times a year to go see a football game. I don’t know how accurate that actually is, but I find the entire debate to be largely pointless, except as it pertains to the extent of renovation to Rentschler field.
The useful life of a college football stadium is 30 years. Now, that’s not to say that they cannot be extended beyond that, the Yale bowl is a notable example. But those old sunken stone stadiums are better positioned to have their life extended indefinitely. Heck there are still amphitheater‘s in Sicily and Greece that are in use thousands of years later. so, if the useful life of the rent is 30 years, does it make sense to spend $64 million for improvements that will not extend its useful life? Sure, we can continue to Band-Aid it and patch it after that 30 years has passed, but then you get into an XL Center situation where you’re in a facility that nobody particularly likes and is grossly out of date. In my opinion, it makes sense to make the repairs necessary so that Rentschler field can be a successful venue through its useful life. In 10 years we can reevaluate the situation. Maybe, it’ll make the most sense to go to the XL Center route And keep on patching the thing as it grows increasingly more out of date. Maybe it’ll make more sense to build on campus. Maybe it will make the most sense to build a stadium next-door to the existing stadium. I don’t know. But this go round, I would perform those repairs necessary to keep the stadium functioning through its useful life. I would also tell the CRDA that if it continues to ignore routine maintenance, it will be disbanded. If there’s extra money, I’d rather see more seat backs put in, but that’s just me and I really don’t have a dog in this hunt since it’s not my tax dollars supporting it.
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