The On-Campus Stadium Debate

[hthusky74]

First off, I'm new to the board, so I'll give you a little background on me. I'm currently a rising Junior at UConn majoring in Resource Economics. I've lived in Charlotte, NC since 2000 so I've become very accustomed to SEC/ACC football and the beautiful small college towns that make the gameday experience so special. I love UConn and I'm very happy with my school choice, however I can't help but notice how much Storrs not having the football stadium on campus hurts the University atmosphere.

With that being said can someone explain to me the background story as to why the stadium was put in East Hartford instead of Storrs? And is there any hope in the future for a new stadium to be built in Storrs? I appreciate any information y'all may have.

There will be a stadium in Storrs when hell freezes over. The roads can't take it, the people in the communities there don't want it, and the state will not build one unless it is in a relatively depressed area so they can justify it by saying it will help improve the area. Plus they can't fill the one we have now.

 

[J187Money]

It can only get built if the locals allow it. The rest if it can get solved. The money can be found. And if you build it, they will come. Yes, traffic would suck. But that isn't the problem. That's just an excuse.

But if you think the locals won't kill it? I'd like to hear someone offer a rational solution how that gets done.

 

[upstater]

There will be a stadium in Storrs when hell freezes over. The roads can't take it, the people in the communities there don't want it, and the state will not build one unless it is in a relatively depressed area so they can justify it by saying it will help improve the area. Plus they can't fill the one we have now.

OK, OK, but don't give me this roads can't take it BS. We've been over this. Worse roads with double the people are used elsewhere. Everyone who has driven off I-80 through Bellefonte can tell you this.

 

[hthusky74]

110,000 used to go to PSU on a one lane road. Now THAT impressed the B1G!

That's bs. PSU is a couple of miles off the interstate. Storrs is a lot of miles off the interstate on narrow one-lane windy roads. Traffic would back up to Hartford if 65,000 people tried to drive there for a game. There is no way a highway is being built up there either. Especially if it is tied in to a stadium project.

 

[upstater]

That's bs. PSU is a couple of miles off the interstate. Storrs is a lot of miles off the interstate on narrow one-lane windy roads. Traffic would back up to Hartford if 65,000 people tried to drive there for a game. There is no way a highway is being built up there either. Especially if it is tied in to a stadium project.

WRONG!

Until 99 was recently built, you had people get off 80, drive through the town of Bellefonte (SLOWLLLLLY), then onto the Benner Pike until you hit College Ave.

It was 15 miles, single lane road. And it was like that for 40 years of big games until the last decade.

 

[CTMike]

To answer the OP... objections from the town of Mansfield, obvious traffic limitations, and a desire for a centrally located stadium no doubt all played a part. I'd also search the Hartford Courant's website, as I'm sure they have a ton of articles that frame the debate.

Currently, there's not a lot to debate. The thought of foregoing a 10 year old stadium to invest what would ultimately be a billion in infrastructure improvements (between a stadium and traffic needs) is insane... hey, even I think about winning Powerball now and then but I don't give more than a minute or two of thought and then I move on. Not worth wasting my time and getting my hopes up.

That said if you ever found a way to privately finance the stadium - that would be worth a discussion.

 

[CTMike]

The thought that "if we build it on campus we'll suddenly have Penn State levels of support to sit in traffic on 195 and 44" is pure fantasy talk. Both roads would need major, costly overhauls to support 60k plus on a Saturday.

 

[whaler11]

25k students, how many faculty, staff, townspeople?

You are just too far removed to acknowledge the reality here on the ground. This same population doesn't come to basketball games at Gampel. Yet they will fill a football stadium 4-5 times bigger. It's just not realistic.

 

[J187Money]

You are just too far removed to acknowledge the reality here on the ground. This same population doesn't come to basketball games at Gampel. Yet they will fill a football stadium 4-5 times bigger. It's just not realistic.

In the AAC? Correct. In the B1G? Absolutely. Games will be events.

 

[Dann]

it needs to be a state overhaul

roads:
-build super 7 from norwalk to danbury
-rt 25 from monroe to newtown
-384 needs to continue right down 44 to the cross with 195. 195 to 84 needs to be built up.
-44 from 195 cross all the way to providence needs to be built up. u could add in 44 north of hartford getting beefed up also.

towns and business
-195 in storrs needs to become a downtown post rd type deal. 4 lane, 25mph bars, eats, apts, bookstore and all that jazz. it needs to have a parade with the band 7 saturdays a year packed with ppl and be host to about 40ish nights a winter to post game partying between puck and bball. it needs to become the town life.
-mansfield, willimantic, coventry, tolland and bolton need to all be developed into little 40k population small towns. build that population on the back of hartford coming back to life bringing in big business and uconn sports being the entertainment draw.
-manchester over time will follow the above towns

facilities and sports:
-knock down the xl. build a big office building setup.
-knock down the rent. build a big trump tower there like in stamford. the name is nothing more than a name rights for flash...build the mall and more apts around it until a great community on that land. get the states money back what ever they are still owed if anything at that point.
-do not let another minor league sport into the state north of bridgeport. nothing. NH-Hart needs to be uconn only. current baseball teams stay until they move, then done with that.
-put some type of sport in stamford and thats it.
-build 60k stadium on campus. 15k bball arena for bball only. 5k puck barn. 3k baseball and 1k softball. other sports same deal.....
-with a 30kish uconn storrs population and a 200k immediate town surrounding population you now have the draw. the only show in town.
-stamford at 150k should be a goal, norwalk at 100k, bpt at 150k and clean it up. danbury at 85k and waterbury at 100k should be goals population wise to clean up and grow.

thats how you build a monster. its a lot fo $ and a lot more then some crap i just typed. but a go getter gets it. vision. leadership. planning. we lack it all. no balls.

imagine 7 football games a year 60k sold out. 195 packed. 20k students and 30 season tix 10k open tix. house rocking. 40ish home bballa nd puck gmes a year. constant draws. baseball being the only show in town gets crowds for saturday dh's and how about tuesday night games? and so on.

its all possible. but this state needs to stop being puss ies and stop making crappy decisions.

yea i know, this is fantasy land. im just a drunk and i dont understand english.

 

[hthusky74]

OK, OK, but don't give me this roads can't take it BS. We've been over this. Worse roads with double the people are used elsewhere. Everyone who has driven off I-80 through Bellefonte can tell you this.

Looks to me that it is all highway, 99/220, until the Park Ave exit then you have less than 2.5 miles to the stadium.

 

[upstater]

Looks to me that it is all highway, 99/220, until the Park Ave exit then you have less than 2.5 miles to the stadium.

99 was just built. What about the previous half-century?

 

[upstater]

The thought that "if we build it on campus we'll suddenly have Penn State levels of support to sit in traffic on 195 and 44" is pure fantasy talk. Both roads would need major, costly overhauls to support 60k plus on a Saturday.

It may be fantasy. But that's why the football program is denigrated by B1G fans.
It needs to happen. That's the point.

This is what Perkins and UConn wanted. They were right. The atmosphere from 15k screaming undergrads and another 10k townies plus 15k driving in over the course of the day and maybe another 5k coming the night before would have you up to 45k.

It would've been great, and that atmosphere might have contributed to more folk coming for the event, for the weekend, and for that matter, spending money in town, which would have spurred restaurants and the like. 20k people driving in/out at the exact same time? That won't work. But you create another atmosphere when you have it on campus.

Surely, the UConn people and Perkins from back then had been through all of this, had considered all of this, and they pushed hard for a campus stadium.

 

[Mr.Phat]

UCONN will shortly have fulfilled its obligation to the state of Connecticut and the Rent. Shortly means within the next decade.

Now is the time that UCONN should start a preliminary analysis of constructing an on campus stadium. The folks at Colorado State and UNLV are well along to doing what UConn should be doing.

In light of the plans to grow enrollment to 25k undergrads, at Storrs, from the current 17k enrollment, there exists a solid, energized basis to support such a study.

UCONN has the land that it needs. What is lacking is the $150 million to $250 million in private funds necessary.

Given that UCONN will need to have the hockey arena issue settled in three years, a campaign should be started now. It will be incredibly difficult, but not impossible. Such things as a study of the monetization of naming rights and a TCU-like donor suite pre-sale would provide a relatively quick way to have the fundraisers get out of the block running, to prove economic feasibility, and provide the inherent excitement and community that such an undertaking would foster.

You will find naysayers here that contend that the drive from different parts of the state make getting to Storrs an emotional and physical impossibility. This in one of the smallest states in the union.

Others will claim that there exist no way to build roads, interchanges and crossings. While road-building has existed for thousands of years in the rest of the society, the Connecticut border apparently is an impenetrable barrier to such notions.

Still others will cite riparian rights, apathy, and various other excuses as to why what countless others have done (and are doing) UCONN can not do.

Make no mistake, it is doable. It will require something that UCONN has been lacking for quite some time now, and that's leadership from stakeholders, be it the students, alums, donors,, and most important of all, the athletic department and UCONN administration.

I don't see how this could ever happen. Could you imagine the traffic snarl at the intersection of 195 and 44?

I might be wrong but if you look at most major stadiums - SC, Rose Bowl, Horse Shoe, Big House, the Swamp, keep going, all those stadiums are NEXT to a major interstate - like at most a mile away. Like Rentschler.

I've been to several Ducks games at Autzen in Eugene Oregon. It's next to a freeway. Takes 10 minutes to park near the stadium once you get off route 5 (the west coast equivalent of 95). I just don't see it happening unless someone forklifts the entire university to the 195 exit off 84.

 

[pj]

We need $200 mn to build a 6-mile freeway from I-84 to the north end of campus, $400 mn to extend I-384 to the south end of campus, $200 mn for a state of the art 50k seat stadium, get 15k students and you may plausibly get 35k from the rest of the state attracted by tailgating and the college experience.

 

[hthusky74]

99 was just built. What about the previous half-century?

What about the previous century when they went by horse and buggy? What's your point? There are only a couple of miles of small roads to Beaver Stadium. The rest is interstate. Drive up to the next window please.

 

[CTMike]

Dan man.... there is a difference between a vision and reality, is all. I'm with you that UConn needs to be much, MUCH more proactive. In a lot of areas. But not even 1/10th of what you typed is rooted in reality.

Put the same energy in how to improve the experience at the Rent, like that train thread. That's much more realistic. We can be big time there if we start f@*$%n winning.

 

[upstater]

I don't see how this could ever happen. Could you imagine the traffic snarl at the intersection of 195 and 44?

I might be wrong but if you look at most major stadiums - SC, Rose Bowl, Horse Shoe, Big House, the Swamp, keep going, all those stadiums are NEXT to a major interstate - like at most a mile away. Like Rentschler.

I've been to several Ducks games at Autzen in Eugene Oregon. It's next to a freeway. Takes 10 minutes to park near the stadium once you get off route 5 (the west coast equivalent of 95). I just don't see it happening unless someone forklifts the entire university to the 195 exit off 84.

What is SC? State College? I already answered that. It was 15 miles away of tiny one lane roads and through a Colonial burg that hasn't changed since the Huguenots founded it.

I lived in Ann Arbor too. My friend who bought a home that first year woke up at 7 am to find 40 cars parked on his grass lawn (front and back yard) with people frying eggs and bacon by their cars. They smacked $50 each into his hands and then told him the history of the house going back 30 years.

 

[upstater]

What about the previous century when they went by horse and buggy? What's your point? There are only a couple of miles of small roads to Beaver Stadium. The rest is interstate. Drive up to the next window please.

If you don't understand my point, you need some sleep.

110,000 packed that stadium before 99 was built. Before 99 was built, the interstate was 15 miles away.

I think everyone else understood my point except for you.

 

[Excalibur]

Mansfield had nothing to do with it. The on-campus stadium was a victim of state politics. It was practically a done deal, but it was an election year, and the challenging candidate for governor questioned building the stadium, and with that any member of her party that previously supported it flipped, and the idea died. I think most people have no idea how close it was to happening. But the stadium would have been even more bare bones than the Rent, and it would have seated about 32,000.

 

[Drew]

I didn't mean to open Pandora's box with this I just wanted to know the story behind it. I will search through the Hartford Courant archives to see what I can find.

As for my future goals in life, it is my hope to one day be one of the big time influential donors to the athletics dept. and convince the other high roller donors that this is something that needs to be done. If you get the big donors in support of it, threatening to stop donating if it doesn't happen, it has more of a chance than people would think IMO.

 

[Excalibur]

I didn't mean to open Pandora's box with this I just wanted to know the story behind it. I will search through the Hartford Courant archives to see what I can find.

As for my future goals in life, it is my hope to one day be one of the big time influential donors to the athletics dept. and convince the other high roller donors that this is something that needs to be done. If you get the big donors in support of it, threatening to stop donating if it doesn't happen, it has more of a chance than people would think IMO.

Drew, this link gives you what you need to know.

 

[Drew]

Well the Courant charges for their archived articles so I guess that won't be happening. Frustrating to say the least.

 

[whaler11]

In the AAC? Correct. In the B1G? Absolutely. Games will be events.

Yeah UConn is in the AAC.

 

[Drew]

Drew, this link gives you what you need to know.

thank you excalibur, I hope before I die to see a football stadium in Storrs with stores and restaurants and shops and apartments surrounding the area. I could see Storrs becoming a lot like Athens, GA. Makes me sick that this whole thing ended up falling apart for essentially no reason.