A Winning Complex

The University of Central Florida has spent roughly $300 million on new sports facilities for the growing Orlando-based university.

Debra Wood

With growing enrollment and a desire to elevate sports to a higher level, the University of Central Florida in Orlando has completed a $300 million initiative to add a stadium, arena, student housing and retail outlets as part of an athletic village.

“We have a lot going on,” says Bill Merck, vice president for administration and finance at UCF. “We’ve had a big surge (in enrollment) in the last three years. There was a coincidence in that we needed a new arena, and at about the same time we found an opportunity to build a stadium.”

UCF opened in 1968 with fewer than 2,000 students. More than 46,000 attended the state university last year, and projections for 2007-2008 exceed 48,000. Merck attributes the growth to Florida’s overall population increase and a strong community college system.

advertisement

“There is a big demand for educational services,” Merck says. “The construction is because of the growth of people.”

The 1,415-acre campus offered room to grow, but the school lacked funds to build more housing and parking and to expand its 5,000-seat arena. Then officials came up with the idea to package the multiple needs into a multiphased athletic compound that included the new arena, residential space, garages and retail near the athletic fields.

With the projects just wrapping up, UCF has noted an increase in attendance at baseball and volleyball games, which Merck attributes to more students residing in the vicinity.

“There’s a lot of synergies having 2,000 students living in that area,” Merck says. “It’s working well.”

The school entered into a public-private partnership with KUD International of Santa Monica, Calif. KUD serves as program manager and completion guarantor for the convocation center, housing and 80,000-sq-ft retail center.

“We helped define the program, coordinate design and construction requirements and have done a turnkey development for the UCF Convocation Corp.,” says Jack McGowan, project executive with KUD.

Revenue from the 2,000 residential units, 500 of which opened in 2005, 1,000 in 2006 and 500 this fall, parking and retailers supports the debt on the new $107 million arena. Students pay $600 to $700 per month for their units and $450 annually for a reserved space in the parking garage. Retailers pay between $22 and $30 per sq ft, depending on when they joined the project, and a certain percentage of sales.

Jack Jennings & Sons of Orlando built the four residential buildings, which the school funded through issuing bonds totaling $166 million. The bonds also financed the $64 million stadium.

A capital campaign has raised more than $3 million, which will be used to pay off the stadium debt and retire the bonds early, says John Pittman, UCF director of financial services. No state funds or tuition will be used to pay for the stadium. The school will rely on money from ticket sales and naming rights. Bright House Networks paid $15 million for 15 years to place its name on the stadium.

UCF Convocation Center

Balfour Beatty Construction of Orlando began construction on the $55 million arena and convocation center in October 2005 and completed the project in August. The 278,065-sq-ft facility sits on a spread-footing foundation. It has a concrete frame with structural-steel trusses and a precast seating bowl with 8,500 fixed seats.

“The seating comes in pieces and an erection group comes to install it,” says Matt Reinders, senior project manager for Balfour Beatty. Precast materials were delivered and staged offsite and brought to campus as needed, due to tight site restraints.

The arena, designed by HOK Sport of Kansas City, Mo., features 16 luxury suites, two party suites, presidential suite, club lounge, pre-event catering space and outside plaza. Stucco, metal panels and manmade stone clad the exterior.

In addition to basketball games, the arena will host graduations, concerts and other entertainment events. The school invested more than $1 million in acoustic enhancements. It also built five loading dock areas to make it easy for traveling acts to set up and pull out.

Balfour Beatty planned to begin renovations on the old arena this fall. That building will connect to the new structure and house practice courts and a 2,500-seat lower bowl for small events and volleyball games.

Bright House Networks Stadium

Prior to this year and the opening of the Bright House Networks Stadium on the UCF campus, the UCF Knights football team played at the Citrus Bowl, about 13 mi from campus.

“Every game for us was an away game,” Merck says. “This stadium gave us the opportunity to have that fall football culture be a part of the campus rather than something to commute to.”

Merck adds that on-campus football creates a closer bond between the school and its alumni. It builds an excitement and pride that otherwise would not exist, and it helps with recruiting students and athletes.

Despite knowing the benefits of moving the games to the East Orlando campus, Merck says UCF did not think it could afford a football stadium—before it learned learning about the premanufactured bleacher and stadium systems available from Dant Clayton of Louisville, Ky.

“It turned out to be half the price we were thinking we would have to pay for a stadium,” Merck says.

Wharton-Smith of Orlando broke ground on the 45,000-seat, 1-million-sq-ft stadium in May 2006 and completed it within 16 months, in time for the football season opener in September.

“The challenging part was the schedule,” says Tom Murphy, project manager with Wharton-Smith. He says the company worked six or seven 12- to 14-hour days to complete the project, which peaked at 240 workers.

Tom Waggoner, project principal for stadium designer 360 Architecture of Kansas City, Mo., says that a normal schedule for a project of this size is 30 to 32 months. The stadium, expandable to 65,000 seats, is designed specifically for football, with a natural grass turf field.

The budget drove the design, with the owner, contractor and design professionals working together to keep costs down, adds John Eyler, construction administrator for 360 Architecture.

Wharton-Smith’s scope of work included the sitework, utility infrastructure, spread-footing foundations, locker rooms, catering kitchen, concession areas, restrooms and the build-out of the four-level tower with suites and press box, which rises above the bowl. The project consumed 2,452 tons of steel and 12,000 cu yds of concrete.

“It’s a neat foundation system for the stadium seating bowl,” Murphy says. “You have to guard against uplift in case you get a big wind.”

Crews drove sheeting into the ground to prevent the wind from pushing the stadium structure sideways. Then they inserted reinforcing steel through slots in the sheeting. Helical anchors prevent uplift.

“The most amazing part is we had to put in a foundation for the stadium steel before the steel began arriving onsite,” Murphy says. “Out of the 400 foundations we have out there, there were more than 3,000 anchor bolts, and we had only two clusters that were misaligned.”

Wharton-Smith also built the concrete-block concession areas before the steel was erected, since it would have been impossible to set the roof structure’s hollow core planks after the steel was up. A brick veneer covers the outer concourse elevations visible to the public.

The 24 air-conditioned luxury suites feature outdoor balconies, so attendees can enjoy being part of the crowd. Metal panels and stucco clad the press box.

Useful Sources:

Bright House Networks Acquires Naming Rights to UCF Football Stadium
http://news.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page=article&id=0024004105bd60439010c0c76ce2f007021

Convocation Center, Set to Open in 2007, to Host Basketball, Concerts and More
http://news.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page=article&id=002400419c2cc5e01078f908310007f6f

Bright House Stadium
http://ucfathletics.cstv.com/brighthouse/facts-figures.html

Team Box:

Convocation Center
Owner: University of Central Florida, Orlando
Program Manager: KUD International, Santa Monica, Calif.
Construction Manager: Balfour Beatty Construction, Orlando
Architect: HOK Sport, Kansas City, Mo.
Seating Contractor: Irwin Seating Co. , Grand Rapids, Mich.

Stadium

Owner: University of Central Florida, Orlando
Construction Manager: Wharton-Smith, Sanford, Fla.
Architect: 360 Architecture, Kansas City, Mo.
Stadium Seating Contractor: Dant Clayton, Louisville, Ky.