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Florida's new baseball stadium, football facility delayed a year
Florida's new baseball stadium, football facility delayed a year
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida had previously announced a huge facilities overhaul, with the baseball program set to get a new stadium, the softball facility currently getting a major renovation and the construction of a new stand-alone football facility in the works.
On Wednesday, Florida announced that the initial timeline for the baseball and football projects has been delayed. The baseball stadium will now be a $65 million project, as opposed to the $50 million project initially announced. The new budget was approved Wednesday by the University Athletic Association, pending approval by the UF Board of Trustees.
Originally, the Gators had hoped to begin construction on the new baseball stadium this fall, with the goal of completing it prior to the 2020 season. Florida will instead break ground on the new baseball facility in February, meaning the new stadium will not be ready to play in now until the 2021 season.
"This is an exciting day for Gators Baseball and our entire athletic department," athletics director Scott Stricklin said in a press release. "While our original hope was to have the ballpark available at the beginning of 2020, and therefore available for play that season, this period of rising construction prices has required additional time to finalize the design, and has caused us to adjust our timeline by a few months.
"You get one chance to build these types of facilities ... facilities that will change the landscape of a program for generations to come. It's exciting to think of the impact the new ballpark will have on future Gators players, coaches and fans."
The original overall facilities plan was to begin construction on the stand-alone football facility in late 2019 or early 2020 on the ground where McKethan Stadium is currently located, with the baseball stadium torn down following the 2019 season.
That project will now be delayed another year.
The football facility calls for a 130,000-square-foot facility that will be connected to the current indoor practice facility. That will allow players the flexibility to use the turf indoor field for athletic training in close proximity to the weight room, a luxury the Gators don't currently have with the weight room housed underneath Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
It will also allow Florida to build the facility to maximize efficiency with the location of the locker rooms, training rooms, coaches offices, team meeting rooms and more all laid out in a more sensible manner.
South of the stand-alone facility the current plan is to include green space, with the potential for future development in that area, which adjoins Stadium Road.
Florida hopes to complete the stand-alone football facility by the end of 2021. The Gators will also be upgrading the locker room inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, which will serve as a gameday-only locker room once the new football facility is built.
The new baseball stadium will still be located on Hull road, near Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium (softball) and Donald R. Dizney Stadium (lacrosse) and will be constructed on land currently occupied by UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS).
The stadium will feature two decks of seating in the main concourse, with home plate facing northeast, such that the majority of the seats will be shaded, either by the second deck or by an overhang covering the second deck itself. It will have an overall capacity of 10,000, with more than 4,000 chairback seats.
The good news is Florida has done a good job fundraising, receiving nearly $86 million in pledged private commitments for the projects.
"To date we have raised more than 50 percent of our fundraising goal," Gator Boosters Inc. Executive Director Phil Pharr said. "We are fortunate that Gator Nation shares in our vision of delivering a championship experience. We are appreciative of their investment into the future of Gator Athletics and the individual life-changing opportunities our student-athletes have available to them in Gainesville."