LINCOLN — To keep up with the big boys in the Big Ten, the Nebraska athletic department plans to expand Memorial Stadium by about 5,000 seats.
But Athletic Director Tom Osborne said Friday that the stadium project is only one component of a more extensive plan.
“I’m not a subscriber that you have to keep up with the Joneses, but you have to at least be in the league,” Osborne said as he unveiled details of a proposed $55.5 million expansion of the East Stadium, including 30 more skybox suites.
Also in the works, announced Friday or already under way: a new practice facility for Husker baseball; $20 million in renovations to the Devaney Center; an expansion of Memorial Stadium’s weight-training facility, not to mention a new basketball practice facility and a $168 million city-owned arena where the Husker basketball teams will play.
Nebraska becomes one of four football elites in the Big Ten when it joins the conference next year, Osborne said.
The other three programs — Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan — each have football stadiums that seat more than 100,000 fans and athletic budgets that exceed $100 million a year.
“That puts us in pretty fast company,” Osborne said.
In contrast, Nebraska spends about $75 million a year, and Memorial Stadium’s official seating capacity is about 81,000, although it routinely draws about 86,000.
Osborne said the expansion would put Memorial Stadium’s capacity in the 90,000 range, while ticket sales and related revenues would boost the athletic department’s budget by an estimated $7 million a year.
However, Osborne said NU does not want to risk outgrowing its streak of 307 consecutive sellouts.
“It does no good to have 110,000 seats if 20,000 are empty,” he said.
The stadium expansion would be completed in time for the 2013 football season, assuming the University of Nebraska Board of Regents gives the go-ahead at its meeting next week in Omaha.
Along with up to 500 skybox seats, the expansion would create up to 2,800 new general admission seats and up to 2,250 heated and covered club seats.
A central feature would be a three-story grand lobby to preserve and highlight the stadium’s original Gate 20 entrance and its east facade.
The project, to be built behind and over the East Stadium balcony, would add the equivalent of a three-story building to the east side of Memorial Stadium. Osborne and Vice Chancellor Prem Paul pledged that some of the new space will be allocated for academic research.
The proposed 22,000-square-foot indoor baseball and softball facility near Haymarket Park would include batting cages, pitching mounds, a turf system suitable for infield practice and a netting system for live hitting. The $4.75 million facility would free up space in the Hawks Championship Center so that the weight training facility can be expanded with a $2 million gift from former Husker Ndamukong Suh.
Even though the university as a whole faces significant budget cuts in the next couple years because of the economy, Osborne said this is a good time to expand the stadium.
Construction costs are low right now because of the economy, he said.
The athletic department already has accumulated about $25 million in gifts and contributions toward the project. Osborne anticipates another $15 million in private donations toward the project, with the remaining $15 million to be financed with bonds to be repaid through ticket sales.
Despite worries that state budget cuts will hurt the university, Regent Randy Ferlic of Omaha said he sees little reason to fight the athletic department projects when they are so popular with donors and the public.
“The stadium proposal is a no-brainer because of the religion of the people,” he said. “They won’t have any trouble selling that one.”
Regent Tim Clare of Lincoln said he was enthused about the expansion proposal, in particular the plans to add research laboratories and offices in the East Stadium.
“That’s what is so state of the art,” he said. Paul, who is UNL’s vice chancellor of research and economic development, endorsed the proposal in a video-recorded statement Friday. Paul and UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman were on a research-related trip to Zambia.
Paul said the new East Stadium facilities would provide the foundation for an “innovative partnership” between the athletic department and academic researchers.
“I congratulate the athletic department for your vision,” he said. “Go Big Red.”
World-Herald staff writer Emily Nohr contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9581, leslie.reed@owh.com
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