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Updated: June 7, 2024 @ 8:13 pm
The USF football stadium is planned to be built on campus north of the Bulls’ current practice facilities.
The USF football stadium is planned to be built on campus north of the Bulls’ current practice facilities.
TAMPA — After hearing broad ideas about raising revenue and cutting costs June 4, USF trustee Oscar Horton brought up one of his own.
“If we had a football, basketball program that we invested in, and we got in the SEC and all of this, that’s got to be worth tons to us, right?” Horton said. “It’s a return on investment.”
Horton and the rest of USF’s board of trustees took the next step of that investment with a pair of updates on the Bulls’ proposed 35,000-seat football stadium.
One was a formality. The board rubber-stamped a contract with Manhattan Construction Co. to build the stadium and football/lacrosse operations center just north of the team’s current practice facilities. Because the board’s finance committee quickly and unanimously approved the terms two weeks ago, the full board didn’t even need to discuss it June 4.
The second was less significant but more interesting. Board chairperson Will Weatherford announced groundbreaking will take place Oct. 18, a day before the Bulls’ homecoming game against the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“A long time in the making …” Weatherford said. “We’ve kind of spoken it into existence. Just really proud of our team. A lot of work has gone into finding the right place, designing the right facility and helping us create an environment that is going to activate our campus in a way that it’s never been activated before.”
The work isn’t over. Athletic director Michael Kelly said the Bulls are fine-tuning design details for premium seating spaces to begin showing fans some options as soon as this fall. USF officials have also spent a lot of time looking at the functional aspects a modern operations center needs. That facility is set to open in 2026, a year before the stadium.
At least one other hurdle remains. USF has approved up to $340 million for the stadium but has not yet set a final cost, called a guaranteed maximum price. The board will have to sign off on that cost in the coming months.
But before USF can get to that phase, it had to settle on a construction contract. According to the terms sheet, the builders will receive 2.25% of the construction cost. The builders will owe USF $2 million for every 2027 game in which the stadium is unusable.
The Bulls keep the option to cancel at any time, and the collective goal is to steer 36% of design/construction expenses to small businesses or firms owned by veterans, women or minorities.
“To know you’ve got the formal contract done and to know that you’ve got the date in place for groundbreaking is pretty special,” Kelly said.
USF plans to fund $140 million of the stadium through donations, the sale of broadband equipment/licenses and other auxiliary accounts. It includes $6.3 million in the 2024-25 fiscal year from students’ capital improvement trust fund.
The school is borrowing the other $200 million through a 20-year taxable loan with 6.48% interest.
It’s a large investment. But the payoff could be large, too, if Horton gets his way. UCF, Cincinnati and Houston all made costly facilities upgrades before they moved from USF’s league (the American Athletic Conference) up to a power conference (the Big 12). SMU is in the middle of a nine-figure update to its football stadium as it moves from the American to the ACC.
Weatherford told Horton he liked the initiative — and the idea of making another $100 million more per year from a league like the SEC.
“Somebody call Commissioner (Greg) Sankey,” Weatherford joked.
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