Oct. 30, 2014 Facilities Master Plan Press Conference
October 30, 2014
Yordon Center - McCarriens Auditorium

Sean T. Frazier:

Thanks everyone. Its great to see so many coaches and administrators here. A lot of work has gone into this process, and I know that its much anticipated and thanks a lot for the patience because we wanted to make sure we got this right. As we’ve kind of taken a look at capitalizing on our momentum, we’ve talked a lot about making sure we did it right but also doing things very strategic. The process of an athletics facilities master plan is just that, very detailed work. A lot of things go into it. A lot of external constituencies as well as internal constituencies and this process has been done one other time that we know in 1991, by Gerald O’Dell, who basically set some of that format and there were some things that were done after that plan. So, we thought it was very fitting to go through that process with the help of donors and private money to put this process together so that we could move forward. The whole basis here as we kind of go through it, and I want to apologize to folks, there’s a lot of detail. I’m going to have to read some specifics so that we don’t have to miss any of it. There will be some documents that we will link as a part of our press kit, as well of some of the other renderings that we have to make sure you can click in. So, anything that I miss, I do apologize on the front end, but I do believe my notes are pretty comprehensive. So, we’re going to jump into that and make sure we follow that suit. I do want to have some special thanks though, to my right John Cheney Senior Associate Athletic Director for Facilities and Game Operations who really helped us shepherd internally, this process start to finish as far as the facilities master plan itself. As well as AECOM, one of the leaders in architecture, facility master planning, and construction really helped us see our vision, our next level of where we want to go. It’s extremely important that we had someone with that caliber of expertise in this process. And it was exciting to kind of watch it evolve and develop. So we’re really excited about that. There was a thorough review, what we’ve gone through was a thorough review. A lot of folks: our alumni base, our season ticket base, our campus constituencies, as well as our community that talked a little about our existing facilities, new facilities, taking a look at concessions and restrooms and everything across the line. We really had to dive into this and really get after it. We coordinated efforts with President Baker’s Master Plan Thesis Team to combine the design components and really keep an eye on the future. There are a lot of things that are going on outside of athletics that are happening on the campus itself and we need to make sure we’ve aligned ourselves to have a shared agenda when it comes to that. So there are a lot of pieces there. And lastly the entire athletic master plan was privately funded. I want to make sure that I stressed that. We do not have a money tree, this was done with donors and supporters that saw the need and saw the vision for the next step. So that’s a key issue there. Those points were definitely put out there.

As you can see on the slide, we’ve talked about the athletic campus or our vision. Key components of that: we created three new facilities, baseball, tennis, and an Olympic sports venue. There will be upgrades to three existing facilities; softball, the soccer and track complex, and the Convocation Center. We’re also going to address the three areas of need to Huskie Stadium; major renovation to the east side, closing the south end zone and improvements to the west side. There’s also an extension and development of Lucinda Avenue, which becomes a strong east-west campus connector that terminates at our proposed new baseball stadium and Convocation Center. So there a lot of things happening that we’d like to try to capture to try to have that east-west campus connector. We also have a new athletic campus entrance, Stadium Drive East, to develop off of Lincoln Highway. The whole idea is to re-energize that whole west side of campus, to add some connectivity there. As we’ve kind of grown and moving out to the west side we want to make sure we add some vibrancy with students, as well as our community coming out there.

The new Olympic sports facility will house multiple sports and will be built immediately to the west of the Chessick Practice Center on the current side of Ralph McKenzie Field. We’ll also provide locker rooms, player lounges for men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s golf, women’s track & field and cross country, gymnastics and wrestling. The center will also include locker rooms for our coaching staff, a sports medicine area, equipment, laundry and storage rooms, and a lobby. The wrestling and gymnastic practice gymnasiums, currently located in Huskie Stadium, will be moved to the new facility. The gymnastics gym space, currently split into two separate rooms, will be combined into one space. So these are key components to make sure that we meet the needs of our sports programs.

We also have a proposed new tennis facility. The new facility will be constructed immediately to the west of the Chessick Practice Center, as the home of NIU’s men’s and women’s tennis programs. We’ll have four playing courts. The adjacent building will include locker rooms, player lounge for each of them, visiting team locker rooms, administration office, equipment storage, training room, a conference room, and video room as well as public restrooms. The potential for court rentals for the community and non-institution athletics will be explored. There will also be spectator seating for about 200-500 spectators. It will be provided via portable metal bleachers adjacent to the outdoor courts.

The new proposed baseball stadium, the new location will be just south of the recently constructed intramural sports complex, just northeast of the Convocation Center. The batter standing at home plate will face northeast, looking at the pitchers mound. New stadium features include bleacher seating for about 1,500, with 200-300 chair backs, a press box, a home team clubhouse attached to the home team dugout, a visiting team locker room, storage rooms, and concession and restroom facilities for spectators. An entry plaza behind home plate will echo a proposed exterior plaza on the north side of the Convocation Center. Potential to construct is a phased approach, as some support areas can be placed in the Convocation Center initially. Partnerships with the summer league baseball team will also be explored.

Mary M. Bell Field for softball will have new low rise structures, will house entry gates for spectators, restrooms, concessions and a small ticket sales room behind the home plate, locker rooms, a player lounge, training room, and equipment storage space will be located behind the first base side. Ground service between the new structure and the back of the metal bleachers will be paved to define a more spectator concourse. The current capacity of 650 seats enhanced with new metal bleachers and access stairs, bring in a total capacity of 1,000 seats. A new perimeter fence will also be installed around the entire field surface, with a perimeter concrete curb at the base.

Moving to the soccer and track field complex. Existing bleachers will be relocated to the west side of the stadium for a closer proximity to the Convocation Center parking. Permanent concession stands and restroom facilities will be provided for the spectators. Team meeting rooms for use during games and track meets will be included. A new press box, will be fully air conditioned, will provide for broadcast and streaming, with seating and a counter space.
Let’s move to the Convocation Center. A perimeter addition that rings the facility from the lobbies on the north side, to the lobby on the south side, will create an interior concourse to allow patrons to move from one side of the building to the other, without entering the seating bowl. So basically what we’re doing there is having more connectivity to the Convocation Center. With the expansion of the team store, relieves congestion and improves patron experience in the existing store during events. The new perimeter addition will create a more visible entrance at the south side of the building, increasing the marketability of the building for non-NIU athletic events. Improvements to the north side entrance include a canopy structure, and an expanded paved plaza area. Additional concession stands in the lobby and display areas to showcase NIU athletic accomplishments, will also be added.

Let’s move to the survey. As we’ve gone through this process we’ve surveyed a number of individuals. Obviously folks that are very interested in NIU athletics and NIU proper. Part of the process of taking a look at Huskie Stadium is that we surveyed about 121,000 NIU donors and season ticket holders, as well as general supporters. We had a response rate of just under four percent, which is obviously significantly significant. We asked questions ranging from interest in donating to the university in general and interest in premium areas, as was desired in the stadium expansion. Some of the responses helped guide our deeper conceptions design of the expansion of Huskie Stadium and the inclusion of four different premium areas, and they were; indoor and outdoor club seats, loge boxes, and suites. Additional information regarding price points and market demand will be used to develop a stadium project. So going through and looking at this particular slide, what we’ve tried to do is capture what the public is looking for. There’s obviously a significant need in premium areas we saw that and we mixed that with the current enhancements of current Huskie Stadium, and this design feature addresses those issues.

Huskie Stadium east side improvement. Premium seating tower with interior club lounge, private suites, and a student engagement program space at the ground level. Exterior club seating built over the top of the existing east side seating structure, seat holders have access to an interior club lounge behind their seat. There will bridges connected to the new tower elevators that will provide access to an adjusted ADA seating position at the front of the east sideline seating structure. A new stadium kitchen and loading dock at the south east corner that will improve stadium operations. Again we want to clean up a number of different things that we have some congestion now about, but also add these amenities as well.

South end zone additions. The new seating connects about two existing sideline structures and increases capacity by the minimal of 6,500 seats. The section is designed to house NIU students and includes an outdoor student club area, below the seats at the center of the end zone. It’s very important to have that student engagement. Right now we’re a little disjointed on the east side, but we’ve heard the students voices when it comes to having a place that they can call their own. This way we can have more of a student spirit concentration. New south concourse ties into the existing circulation zones of both sidelines providing the stadium with 270 degrees of circulation in the secure ticket perimeter. Additional restrooms and concessions will be added. Existing scoreboard will sit above the new south end zone seating structure and the new team store, located at the southwest corner of the stadium will be accessible from both sides and inside the secure stadium perimeter. There will also be a new south end zone upper deck that can be added in the future increasing the seat capacity by the minimum of 3,400 seats.

We didn’t forget about the west side. We felt, from an architectural standpoint, taking the west side and phasing that process because of the connectivity of what’s going on with gymnastics and wrestling was key. Some of those improvements will be done in at least two phases. The initial phase will remove the series of ramps closest to the playing field to open up circulation space. There will be new restrooms and concessions will be added in phase one. While no wrestling and gymnastics facilities are in place, the gymnasiums will be moved to open to additional concourse space and provide more new restrooms and concession areas. New tickets office space, in the ground level lobby, will relieve congestion and improve security. An additional elevator will serve the press box, which will also receive an interior renovation to resize and repurpose existing coaches, press, and operations booths. An upper deck could also be added at a future date to increase seating capacity by a minimum of 5,100 seats.

This is the presentation portion of it. We’re really excited about what we have. There are a lot more details that I have not covered in the presentation, but they are in the packet that will be attached to the website in the future. This is a start. This is a part of the process of putting all of our priorities together. In the future we will identify which project that we will target first, but we had to dissect and be very extremely strategic on the different pieces that are necessary. We have to be good stewards of our resources, and we understand the only way we’re going to be able to get these things done is through private gifts and passion about NIU athletics. This is an exciting time. We know exactly where we are going, now we have to get after it.

Frazier opens the floor for questions:

On whether or not there is a ballpark figure of how much the additions and renovations are going to cost and whether or not it’s a 10-year or 15-year plan…
That’s a very good question. The plan is going to be based on resources. The total plan in today’s dollars is about 138 million, for the entire project. I’m going to pass the hat for collection after we’re done here.

On whether or not the 138 million dollars is all privately funded…
There will be a combination. The survey process, which is extremely comprehensive, really shed a lot of light about the capacity of our donor base, our alumni base, and quite frankly the demand. There are some things right away that we’re going to be able to do based on the demand. We know we’re lacking in concessions areas. We know we’re lacking in restrooms. We know we’re lacking in premium areas. There’s a significant need and for us to do a lot of that we’re going to have to move the puzzle around. That’s why I wanted to show how we layered the thing. So that we could make sure that we capture that because we have needs across all of our facilities in order to maintain our competitiveness, and to take it to the next level. But I do see a significant amount of private gifts, but I also see some premium areas that are going to pay for itself by putting them online. So there is going to be a combination of both sides, but that’s a very good question.

On whether or not we’ve started raising money yet…
We’re in a silent phase of cultivation. We raise money everyday. It’s all about cultivating and making sure that we put the proper pieces together. What we wanted to do, is to make sure we match demand. We want to make sure that we put together a comprehensive process and make sure we didn’t leave anyone out of this thing. The whole process of cultivation, in the future there’s going to be a campaign and we’re going to be a good partner for that to the university. President Baker and his leadership is unyielding about the support for athletics, and we’re excited a part of that team. But what we want to do is go through this process and identify, what we feel are priorities. The next step is to match those dollars and priorities in a way that we can move forward with our donor base and our alumni base.

On what will determine what gets done first…
A lot of different factors, but the way I see it is a collection of a couple things. One, obviously the need of our core programs. There are some things right now, we’re housed in Huskie Stadium right now with two premium sports and we have to take a look at that. There is also going to be donor interest. There is going to be some folks that as we put this out, now to the nation, that are going to look at this plan and say I see myself in that plan and I want to leave a legacy. I want to support this. I want to put my name on that. And then the other piece of that is being strategic. This wasn’t done with a crayon and a flashlight in the backroom. There are a lot of things we have to do to really see what works for us. What’s the next best step for us? And we’re going to do this in collaboration with the campus, president, university officials, and the community to make sure when we put that project out there we feel 150%, that this is the right direction for us to go.  So there is a collaborative effort to decide that next project. But the great news is, there will be a next project.

On when that decision will be made…
I think that from now, until the spring is when we will identify the next project and then we’ll go through our silent phase of revenue generation to make sure that we back that up. But that’s good question. By going public today, I will say that we are in that process right now.

On whether, if everything works out well, how long the project will take…
It does, because it’s a bit of a moving target. People are going to look at these nice pictorials that we have, and there will be more, and there’s a lot of folks that are excited about it. A lot of folks have contacted me and really want these changes to happen, that’s why we did broad base. There wasn’t just one particular facility, it was a facilities master plan that was necessary. So that will really be dictated by interest. Some of it is based on interest, timing, based on passion. So for me to say that that will go first and then I get knock on the door I’ve got someone extremely interested that wants to do “X,” well guess what we have a menu today. The menu is there and I look forward to having conversations with anyone who’d like to have a conversation with me, about moving these things forward.

On what the new seating capacity will be at Huskie Stadium…
As a phase in process, we’re looking at a capacity of 30-35,000, with the potential of going up to 42,000. That’s kind of where we are and we feel comfortable where we are that that is going to meet our needs. We always want more seats, but we also want people to fill those seats. We want something very intimate. We have a great facility right now, and what we want to do is build off of that and when that thing is full nobody wants to play in Huskie Stadium. It is definitely a difference maker when you’re out there. I won’t speak for Rod, but for me, in my short time here, when that thing is packed, it’s definitely the place to be.

On whether or not he sees Huskie Stadium being first in regards to the master plan…
I think that that’s one of several facilities that we have that makes sense cause it makes the domino effect. Will I say it’d be the first? No. I’ll say that I know there’s interest there and I’ll say that there is interest in a number of other facilities as well, but that definitely starts the domino by virtue of what’s housed already in the Huskie as well as some of the amenities that need to happen. But I’m excited about the whole thing, from an energy standpoint. The vibe of what we have going on, it’s a great day to be a Huskie.

On whether there are potential naming rights in regards to Huskie Stadium…
Yeah. I think from a corporate standpoint for naming rights, that’s all on the table right now. Obviously, Brigham Field we’re so excited to have the Brigham name on our field but the stadium proper, we’ve got Huskie Stadium right now. Those are opportunities for corporates and others that see themselves as being able to leave a legacy. What greater thing can you do then to leave your name on something as fantastic as Huskie Stadium? I think that for us that’s one option, but there are a lot of other things that our development team and our advancement team, both at the campus, as well as the athletic level, have to look at.