Florida has put a price tag on what is believed to be the most expensive stadium project in college football history: $1.45 billion.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the figure Gators athletic director Scott Stricklin shared Thursday with the university\u2019s board of trustees. His presentation came before a committee approved plans to pursue a final deal for the construction management team Manhattan Construction Company\/AECOM-Hunt to renovate Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, commonly called The Swamp.<\/p>\n
Stricklin said the goal wasn\u2019t to reinvent The Swamp, which remains one of the most iconic and historic venues in the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather, it is designed to protect its character and enhance its future,\u201d Stricklin told the committee.<\/p>\n
Stricklin said the renovation won\u2019t touch the capacity (88,548) or alter the lower bowl and winged walls. Instead, it will modernize a stadium that opened in 1930 by adding premium seating, expanding the concourses and bathrooms and enhancing entry points and concession areas.<\/p>\n
The price dwarfs even some of the largest recent stadium projects. Penn State\u2019s ongoing renovation<\/a> at Beaver Stadium is about half the price at $700 million (roughly $750 million after adjusting for inflation). Texas A&M\u2019s overhaul of Kyle Field a decade ago came in at $484 million (about $690 million in today\u2019s dollars). Two hours south in Tampa, South Florida is building a new 35,000-seat stadium<\/a> for less than a third of Florida\u2019s cost. Atlanta\u2019s Mercedes-Benz Stadium cost about $1.6 billion<\/a> when it opened in 2017.<\/p>\n Overhauling The Swamp has been discussed casually around Gainesville for at least a decade and seriously on campus for years. In 2023, Florida pegged the starting price tag at no less than $400 million.<\/p>\n Stricklin said the project will be funded through a combination of private donations and long-term debt. He plans to present further financial details for the board to consider at a meeting this fall.<\/p>\n Construction is expected to begin after this season and finish in 2030.<\/p>\n \u201cThe design will maintain the intimacy of the seating bowl, preserve the proximity of the fans to the field and continue to create the intimidating environment that has defined Florida football for generations,\u201d Stricklin said. \u201cWe are not diminishing what makes The Swamp special. We are strengthening it. Simply put \u2026 The Swamp will be bigger, better, louder.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida has put a price tag on what is believed to be the most expensive stadium project in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[143,28,2530,30,29,4442],"class_list":["post-304933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-football","tag-florida","tag-florida-gators","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}