CSU stadium on hold as funding lags

FORT COLLINS – The question of where Colorado State University’s football team will play in the future has gone back to the drawing board.

Faced with the reality that fundraising for a controversial on-campus stadium has fallen far short of its target with just a week to go before a self-imposed deadline, CSU President Tony Frank on Thursday announced that he had decided not to proceed with his financing request for the stadium. In a letter to the university’s faculty, however, Frank said he still hasn’t given up on the idea – but also that renovation or rebuilding at aging, 32,500-seat Hughes Stadium, located two miles west of the main campus, is back on the table.

Frank, who proposed building the on-campus stadium in October 2012, launched a two-year “fundraising window” and said he would recommend proceeding with construction if $110 million – about half the cost of the athletic portion of the proposed $254 million facility – could be raised in time for his Oct. 2-3 meetings with the school’s Board of Governors. However, in July, Brett Anderson, CSU’s vice president for advancement, announced that only $24.2 million had been collected through June 30.

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Jack Graham, who had spearheaded the drive for the new stadium, was fired in August and subsequently told media outlets that the public fundraising goal assigned to him was just $75 million. On Thursday, Frank said he was “confident” that only about $50 million had been “pledged.”

“And so I will inform the Board of Governors that we have not reached our $110 million fundraising goal, and as a result, I will not be bringing them a plan of finance at the October meeting,” Frank wrote. “I do not, however, believe this fundraising result resolves the stadium issue.

“To people who see the world in a binary fashion, failing to move ahead with the financing plan I outlined in October 2012 would imply that we will now fix up Hughes Stadium and remain there,” he wrote. “That is a legitimate option. But it is an option that causes me great concern.”

CSU spokesman Mike Hooker did not return calls seeking comment, nor did representatives of supporters and opponents of the project.

Although some money has been spent on Hughes maintenance during the past two years, Frank wrote, about $30 million in deferred maintenance, replacements and minimal modernizations remains.

Frank contended that no donor who had contributed $50,000 or more to the drive for a new stadium had shown any interest in donating to maintaining Hughes, and thus the $30 million would need to come from the university’s general fund, either by annual spending over 10 years or via general-obligation bonds that would be issued to do the maintenance all at once.

That general fund, Frank noted, is “primarily composed of tuition payments and state appropriations and is the primary fund source used to support the educational mission of the university. I am extremely reluctant to add an expense line of this magnitude to our annual budgets for a non-academic purpose.”

It remained unclear whether the high-dollar donors’ attitude would change if the on-campus stadium were taken out of consideration, although Frank wrote that he hoped the donors would “stay with us … until we reach a final decision and see if that’s something they can support.”

Frank wrote that he would ask the governors to allow him to examine four options over the next two months:

1. Maintaining Hughes as is, scrapping the on-campus stadium idea.

2. Substantial modernization and improvement of Hughes, which opened in 1968, with the idea that the team would remain there for nearly four more decades. Frank labeled this idea “Hughes 2050.” That plan “would involve substantial additional cost,” he wrote, “but it would also provide new revenue to support revenue bonds and there might be more excitement among our donor base.”

3. A pared-down new stadium at the proposed on-campus site, using funds already raised and adding the extras back over the years as money became available.

4. Rebidding the existing on-campus stadium plan as a public-private partnership. CSU would hire a private company to build the on-campus stadium, and pay it off in installments. Frank conceded that plan would cost more in interest.

“I anticipate asking a community leadership committee and a campus leadership committee composed of faculty, staff and students to share their thoughts with me,” Frank wrote, “and we’ll be establishing a website where anyone can weigh in with their thoughts before I finalize my recommendation,” to be made to the governors in December.

Although Frank had hinted publicly months ago that he might consider extending the fundraising deadline, his Thursday letter squelched that notion. “I am concerned that in the face of rising construction costs, each additional delay in a decision – regardless of the decision – results in cost escalation and expenditures on temporary repairs at Hughes Stadium that do not serve our university well,” he wrote.

CSU’s status as a land-grant university allows it to develop as it wishes on its campus without approval of the surrounding city or adhering to city building codes. However, the proposal sparked vocal opposition among some Fort Collins residents, especially those living in surrounding neighborhoods, who cited both aesthetic and financial concerns. A citizens’ group called Save Our Stadium Hughes” sprang up to oppose the project, while another called “Be Bold” was organized to support it.

Although Frank had pledged that the estimated cost of the stadium included “appropriate mitigation of city impacts,” opponents and some Fort Collins city officials estimated that the city could face $30 million to $50 million in infrastructure costs related to the construction of the new stadium. Opponents cited those figures to suggest taxpayers would end up being on the hook for much of the cost.

Supporters in the community pointed to the potential for increased economic impact from a stadium located closer to the city’s core as well as more visibility for CSU across the nation. In June, Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce president and chief executive David May threw the chamber’s support behind the project.

Frank’s presentation to the governors will take place at about 3:30 p.m. Oct. 2 in the North Ballroom of Lory Student Center on the CSU campus. The board will then take public comment before its discussion and before acting on Frank’s recommendation.