Discussions that began nearly a decade ago culminated in a unanimous approval by the University of Missouri System Board of Curators on Friday morning for a $98.5 million renovation of the South end zone at Memorial Stadium. The just approved project will include new premium seating and will house new locker rooms, training facilities and coaches' offices for the Mizzou football team.
The project had long been in the works, but with Friday's approval Missouri can finally move ahead. Infrastructure work will begin during the 2017 football season. Following the season the current South end zone structure will be torn down and construction on the new complex will be complete prior to the 2019 season.
"I thought they did a thorough job of evaluating over the past six months," Director of Athletics Jim Sterk said. "I thought it was really great to come to a culmination today and get a unanimous approval from the board.
"When you have facilities like this it gives you an opportunity to really showcase what's going on in your program. It opens doors that maybe we didn't have before."
“As an SEC institution, this project will allow us to remain competitive in the top athletic conference in the country," Chancellor Alexander Cartwright said in a statement. "Athletics continues to be one avenue that brings our campus together and to inform people across the nation about the quality of education and the opportunities that are available to students who choose to make MU their academic home.”
The South end zone currently holds approximately 10,800 seats. Those will be gone during the 2018 season, reducing capacity to approximately 61,000. The new complex will include approximately 4,000 seats meaning the final capacity of the new stadium will be approximately 65,000. But the revenue from those seats is expected to more than quadruple, from $1.5 million to more than $6 million according to Sterk.
"It's just general admission seating and group sales (currently), so it's low-priced seating there," Sterk said. "We'll be able to generate through the club area down below, the lower level, the suites and those areas so we'll be able to generate a lot more revenue with those areas."
Sterk said the current general admission seating in the South end zone will be relocated to the upper deck on the East side in 2019 and beyond.
The project was one of the first things Sterk was asked about at his introductory press conference at Mizzou a little more than a year ago. It has been front and center on his agenda in the 13 months since.
Missouri has raised approximately $50 million of the $98.5 million price tag from 42 donors to this point. Sterk said he has two "multi-million dollar" pledges that would be announced in the next year or two. Chief Financial Officer Ryan Rapp said that the $57.5 million the department was asking for in debt to be repaid to the University was "conservative," meaning less will quite likely be borrowed.
As part of Sterk's presentation to the board on Friday, he pointed out that Mizzou's Athletic Deparment receives only 1% of its funding from the University. That is below the SEC average of more than 2%. In addition, only 12.3% of the University's debt is from the Athletic Department, which is approximately half of the SEC average of 24.5%, a figure Sterk said indicates how much the league's schools have invested in facilities.
"That's why I shared that information on what athletics gives back and to show that we're not highly subsidized (by the school)," Sterk said. "This is a project that's funded from interest from our supporters. This is the largest amount of money that's been raised for a project at Mizzou so there's a large amount of interest there."
Sterk said in his presentation that the department estimates it will provide $700 million of economic impact and 1,200 new jobs to the Columbia community while construction is ongoing.
"It's not money that the University would have otherwise. It's self-generated," Sterk said. "We pay back and we pay for everything from electricity to our grounds people and our facilities."
There are plenty of details to be worked out on the project, but Sterk said the exterior design in the renderings Mizzou has released is "pretty accurate."
"There will be some changes probably, but it's pretty close to what it will look like as far as the main areas," Sterk said. "Now they can really nail it down as it's developed from here."
While Sterk said he fielded some "tough questions" over the last few months from the board, Friday's meeting went without a hitch. It lasted just more than half an hour and each Curator voted in favor of the project. Curator Maurice Graham called the facility "a game changer" for the University.
Curator Phil Snowden noted that football accounts for approximately 90% of the Athletic Department's revenue on an annual basis.
"I think a great deal of credit goes to Jim Sterk and his staff. What we're doing here today, we're really protecting our most valuable asset in athletics, which is football," Snowden said. "What we're doing is we're enhancing not only football and our brand around the country. We are supporting the 550 student-athletes that are in all the other sports at the University."
With the football team's move to the stadium, space in the the Missouri Athletic Training Complex will freed up and continue to be used by other athletic teams. Sterk said he also has plans to announce another major fundraising campaign for Mizzou athletics in the coming months.
