Thanks for the excuse to do some historical digging on the up and downs of the UConn football stadium. Yes, cost appears to have been the primary factor. It was cost that eventually killed the on-campus proposal in 1997, pushed UConn to see the NE Patriot’s as a potential partners in a downtown Hartford Stadium in 1999 and then led UConn to beg UTC for free land to cut the costs below $100 million for the stadium that was built, the Rent.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/19/nyregion/uconn-sees-support-faltering-for-a-new-football-stadium.html
That said, Mansfield itself seem to be split. The problem was, and this is always the case in small town, there was a very loud, small group that opposed it and they did everything in their power to do so. In this case, the group called themselves ‘Mansfield Common Sense.’ The eventually managed to latch onto the cost issue and swung local politicians in their favor at the state level, which did kill the idea.
http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-06/news/9711060408_1_council-members-town-opposing
http://articles.courant.com/1997-11-12/news/9711120545_1_football-stadium-upcoming-forum-stadium-s-planners
It’s worthwhile noting that this the same group that also opposed the Pfizer facility and more recently the Tech Park to be built to the north of campus, which exactly where the football stadium was supposed to go.
Lastly, this last clip I found was interesting. I did not remember that 3 sites around campus were considered. The first, building a new stadium where Memorial stadium was never went far due to the available footprint. Another near-campus site at the intersection of I-84 and Rte 195 in Tolland could not work due to environmental issues, i.e. wetlands. Thus, the two primary choices was the Mansfield Training School grounds and where the tech park is today. I thought it was interesting that the $100 million include football practice facilities and a stadium built to 35K with expansion to 50K built in. A traffic study even indicated that with direct access to US 44, local roads could have handled game day traffics for a 35K to 50K stadium. What a wasted opportunity.