Places to knock down for stadium

[OriginalGatorHater]

Ruiz just said the stadium will be 65k and going to cost roughly $2 billion, built in 2-3 years. Obviously, the plan is to remodel and upgrade the entire park to give community and several facilities for high school’s they don’t currently have. Plus, add a hotel and some kind of medical trauma center along. My info on medical building may be inaccurate.

Is this seriously going to happen? I figured this was just our yearly "lets make a stadium" porst. I didn't realize this was actually something that is going to take place.

 

[Wake_Cane]

Is this seriously going to happen? I figured this was just our yearly "lets make a stadium" porst. I didn't realize this was actually something that is going to take place.

1000% no it will not. Not speculating in saying that- it is simply not possible.

 

[dookie blaylock]

I have never been to another CFB stadium besides ours, unless I was completely trashed, so I don't remember. How do these little SEC towns handle this sort of traffic on gameday? I can imagine 55k people driving into the middle of Athens or Tuscaloosa would wreak even more havoc on their infrastructure than it would in Miami.

it's not as bad as you'd think because most of the schools that draw that many people are big public schools with infrastructure built/expanded with traffic like that in mind. also a lot of stadiums don't pack all of the parking immediately around it and tailgating can be spread across campus/the surrounding college town.

 

[Hurracanes]

1000% no it will not. Not speculating in saying that- it is simply not possible.

If the money (billions) is there and Tropical Park is going to be gifted these resources without paying a dime, anything is possible. I understand people don’t believe it can happen but when money is involved, it’s naive to think anything is 100%.

 

[Hurracanes]

I have never been to another CFB stadium besides ours, unless I was completely trashed, so I don't remember. How do these little SEC towns handle this sort of traffic on gameday? I can imagine 55k people driving into the middle of Athens or Tuscaloosa would wreak even more havoc on their infrastructure than it would in Miami.

I have been to many games on the road, they are all **** shows. A loud minority of fans are *****ing just to *****.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

1000% no it will not. Not speculating in saying that- it is simply not possible.

You may be misreading, and you should be more clear in your responses.

It should take 2 to 3 years to be built, once construction starts.

I don't think anyone on the planet, including the Ruiz family, is predicting that the stadium will actually be open by the 2024 season.

 

[DTP]

I have never been to another CFB stadium besides ours, unless I was completely trashed, so I don't remember. How do these little SEC towns handle this sort of traffic on gameday? I can imagine 55k people driving into the middle of Athens or Tuscaloosa would wreak even more havoc on their infrastructure than it would in Miami.

I’ve been to all the ones in Florida besides FIU. Obviously, USF plays in a pro stadium also. UF, FSU and UCF aren’t too bad because everyone isn’t taking the same route and there isn’t already a ton of local traffic added to the game day crowd. It’s the typical coming and going traffic immediately around the stadium but that’s literally every single stadium in the world. FAU is a bit of a cluster-f. There’s limited access points to the campus and the exit off the turnpike got backed up for miles when UM played there. It took almost two hours for me to get off the highway and into a parking spot in some random science building parking lot for that game. Some places just aren’t built to handle big crowds. FAU was a huge nightmare and they only have a 30,000 seat stadium. I couldn’t imagine twice that crowd going to a game in the same area.

 

[itsacanething]

If the money (billions) is there and Tropical Park is going to be gifted these resources without paying a dime, anything is possible. I understand people don’t believe it can happen but when money is involved, it’s naive to think anything is 100%.

wouldn't there have to be a vote to get the tropical park land? if there is a vote it is unlikely to happen. as I have previously stated the palmetto is already a mess. do not think residents would be willing to make it worse.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

I’ve been to all the ones in Florida besides FIU. Obviously, USF plays in a pro stadium also. UF, FSU and UCF aren’t too bad because everyone isn’t taking the same route and there isn’t already a ton of local traffic added to the game day crowd. It’s the typical coming and going traffic immediately around the stadium but that’s literally every single stadium in the world. FAU is a bit of a cluster-f. There’s limited access points to the campus and the exit off the turnpike got backed up for miles when UM played there. It took almost two hours for me to get off the highway and into a parking spot in some random science building parking lot for that game. Some places just aren’t built to handle big crowds. FAU was a huge nightmare and they only have a 30,000 seat stadium. I couldn’t imagine twice that crowd going to a game in the same area.

I'm a bit confused by this, and I'm not arguing, I'm just providing another perspective.

I've been going to the UM-F$U games since 1986. Maybe the last couple have not been bad, due to both teams sucking, but the vast majority of traffic for the games in Tallahassee comes from the east. Most people exit at US 90, and there is usually slow traffic that starts AT the exit, and extends for over 5 miles. Maybe the rise of Waze/Google Maps has convinced people to get off at the US 319 exit now. Regardless, there's only one major east-west road (Tennessee Street) and one major north-south street (Monroe) once you get within a mile or two of the stadium. There are usually a ton of cops around (it IS the state capital), and if you know where you are going, you can take side streets to get to your parking complex more quickly. Getting INTO Doak isn't terrible, as people arrive at a wide variety of times, but exiting Doak and the surrounding areas is a DISASTER. There aren't many hotels in the area, so people are desperately trying to get back to civilization on I-10, which is nowhere near as wide as it needs to be for gameday traffic, though it is GREAT when you are simply trying to avoid exiting in Tallahassee because you are super-focused on getting to Jacksonville or Pensacola.

I've been going to the UM-UiF games since 1986, plus I have a graduate degree from UiF. While I-75 is one lane wider in each direction than I-10, you still have similar issues with gameday traffic. Most of the Hogtown gameday traffic comes from the south (Orlando/Tampa/Miami), though there has been a growing flow from Jacksonville which can access Hogtown from the backside, on 24, 26, or 20. Even though there are three main roads you can take to get towards the campus (Williston, Archer, and Newberry), we all know that nearly everyone takes Archer, due to the high concentration of national chain restaurants and stores that fill both sides of the road. ****, I recently got off at Archer (to gas up at Wawa) in the mid-afternoon on a weekday, and it was a DISASTER. Expansion of the area around Shands, as well as ongoing construction, turned a 2.5 mile errand into a 25 minute suicide-contemplation. I can only imagine the 2022 gameday traffic. The only thing that makes EXITING Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium tolerable is that Hogtown has SLIGHTLY more hotels, and the fact that the Gaytor fans like to try to recapture their drunken/rapey college glory days by spending a few hours in their favorite local name-changed-since-they-were-there bars as they silently pray that someone recognizes them and shouts out their name in a postive fashion.

UCF might just be the best of the bunch, largely because it has the smallest stadium of the three (though the largest student population, the vast majority of which cannot get into the games due to the disparity between enrollment and stadium capacity). I've been to many games there, and one of my nephews currently lives in Tower 1, just blocks from the stadium. UCF has fairly close proximity to toll roads such as the East-West Expressway and the Beltway. However, it cannot be denied that Alafaya and University are dual ****-shows on gameday. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of pedestrian and bike traffic, because so much of the housing (and restaurants) are located nearby on Alafaya or University. UCF would greatly benefit from about 10 or 12 pedestrian bridges. UCF has the weird distinction of possibly being worse for PRE-GAME traffic than post-game, as there are HUGE numbers of students who show up to tailgate in the Memory Mall "green" area, and then go home to watch the game on teevee, because there just aren't enough seats to accommodate them.

Overall, I believe that F$U and UCF are better-equipped to utilize police to assist with gameday traffic, while UiF just has to rely on a lot of people just knowing where they are going. Recent "poor performance" has probably helped the gameday traffic situation, but if UiF or F$U ever get good again, or UCF expands the stadium, then it will get bad again. Keep in mind, I have years of experience with the largest sports venue in Florida (Daytona International Speedway), and I cannot emphasize how helpful it is to have a HUGE police presence, potential "one-direction" flow on certain roadways, shuttles, and pedestrian bridges in place. Even then...it takes a while to get into (but especially out of) Daytona on race days.

 

[Hurracanes]

wouldn't there have to be a vote to get the tropical park land? if there is a vote it is unlikely to happen. as I have previously stated the palmetto is already a mess. do not think residents would be willing to make it worse.

Not sure why you think it won’t get voted. What this project does towards the economy, jobs, community, healthcare, tropical park visitors, etc., outweighs the traffic for 7 days.

 

[itsacanething]

Not sure why you think it won’t get voted. What this project does towards the economy, jobs, community, healthcare, tropical park visitors, etc., outweighs the traffic for 7 days.

the anti-campaign will be aggressive and well funded. Just knowing the area and politics around here I think its a heavy lift. now if the commission could vote on it I would change my opinion.

 

[DTP]

I'm a bit confused by this, and I'm not arguing, I'm just providing another perspective.

I've been going to the UM-F$U games since 1986. Maybe the last couple have not been bad, due to both teams sucking, but the vast majority of traffic for the games in Tallahassee comes from the east. Most people exit at US 90, and there is usually slow traffic that starts AT the exit, and extends for over 5 miles. Maybe the rise of Waze/Google Maps has convinced people to get off at the US 319 exit now. Regardless, there's only one major east-west road (Tennessee Street) and one major north-south street (Monroe) once you get within a mile or two of the stadium. There are usually a ton of cops around (it IS the state capital), and if you know where you are going, you can take side streets to get to your parking complex more quickly. Getting INTO Doak isn't terrible, as people arrive at a wide variety of times, but exiting Doak and the surrounding areas is a DISASTER. There aren't many hotels in the area, so people are desperately trying to get back to civilization on I-10, which is nowhere near as wide as it needs to be for gameday traffic, though it is GREAT when you are simply trying to avoid exiting in Tallahassee because you are super-focused on getting to Jacksonville or Pensacola.

I've been going to the UM-UiF games since 1986, plus I have a graduate degree from UiF. While I-75 is one lane wider in each direction than I-10, you still have similar issues with gameday traffic. Most of the Hogtown gameday traffic comes from the south (Orlando/Tampa/Miami), though there has been a growing flow from Jacksonville which can access Hogtown from the backside, on 24, 26, or 20. Even though there are three main roads you can take to get towards the campus (Williston, Archer, and Newberry), we all know that nearly everyone takes Archer, due to the high concentration of national chain restaurants and stores that fill both sides of the road. ****, I recently got off at Archer (to gas up at Wawa) in the mid-afternoon on a weekday, and it was a DISASTER. Expansion of the area around Shands, as well as ongoing construction, turned a 2.5 mile errand into a 25 minute suicide-contemplation. I can only imagine the 2022 gameday traffic. The only thing that makes EXITING Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium tolerable is that Hogtown has SLIGHTLY more hotels, and the fact that the Gaytor fans like to try to recapture their drunken/rapey college glory days by spending a few hours in their favorite local name-changed-since-they-were-there bars as they silently pray that someone recognizes them and shouts out their name in a postive fashion.

UCF might just be the best of the bunch, largely because it has the smallest stadium of the three (though the largest student population, the vast majority of which cannot get into the games due to the disparity between enrollment and stadium capacity). I've been to many games there, and one of my nephews currently lives in Tower 1, just blocks from the stadium. UCF has fairly close proximity to toll roads such as the East-West Expressway and the Beltway. However, it cannot be denied that Alafaya and University are dual ****-shows on gameday. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of pedestrian and bike traffic, because so much of the housing (and restaurants) are located nearby on Alafaya or University. UCF would greatly benefit from about 10 or 12 pedestrian bridges. UCF has the weird distinction of possibly being worse for PRE-GAME traffic than post-game, as there are HUGE numbers of students who show up to tailgate in the Memory Mall "green" area, and then go home to watch the game on teevee, because there just aren't enough seats to accommodate them.

Overall, I believe that F$U and UCF are better-equipped to utilize police to assist with gameday traffic, while UiF just has to rely on a lot of people just knowing where they are going. Recent "poor performance" has probably helped the gameday traffic situation, but if UiF or F$U ever get good again, or UCF expands the stadium, then it will get bad again. Keep in mind, I have years of experience with the largest sports venue in Florida (Daytona International Speedway), and I cannot emphasize how helpful it is to have a HUGE police presence, potential "one-direction" flow on certain roadways, shuttles, and pedestrian bridges in place. Even then...it takes a while to get into (but especially out of) Daytona on race days.

You’re right about having the proper traffic control measures to ease congestion. Whether it’s closing off certain roads or making certain roads one way to accommodate game day traffic it makes a huge difference. Half the problem in large crowds is people not knowing where they’re going and having police to direct crowds and literally tell people where they need to be makes a big difference. It also helps that college towns won’t have a ton of local traffic and the general population is pretty much ok with doing everything to accommodate game day traffic. I’ve also never tried to get into/out of those stadiums right before/after the game. I’ll usually arrive early for tailgating (what another poster mentioned about everyone not parking in the same place is true) and I’ll hang out for a bit after the game to let the crowds trickle out. I never had as much of an issue at any of the stadiums as I had at FAU. Plus the fact that the FAU game was a Thursday night and we had to deal with the already pretty terrible Boca rush hour traffic.

 

[Cane_Mutiny]

Not sure why you think it won’t get voted. What this project does towards the economy, jobs, community, healthcare, tropical park visitors, etc., outweighs the traffic for 7 days.

Between the Marlins Park fiasco and how toxic the Beckham deal at Melreese has become, stadium deals in Miami are politically radioactive... a referendum to approve a stadium at Tropical Park would be a major uphill battle.

Plus, you're underestimating the fact that people like the park just being a park.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

You’re right about having the proper traffic control measures to ease congestion. Whether it’s closing off certain roads or making certain roads one way to accommodate game day traffic it makes a huge difference. Half the problem in large crowds is people not knowing where they’re going and having police to direct crowds and literally tell people where they need to be makes a big difference. It also helps that college towns won’t have a ton of local traffic and the general population is pretty much ok with doing everything to accommodate game day traffic. I’ve also never tried to get into/out of those stadiums right before/after the game. I’ll usually arrive early for tailgating (what another poster mentioned about everyone not parking in the same place is true) and I’ll hang out for a bit after the game to let the crowds trickle out. I never had as much of an issue at any of the stadiums as I had at FAU. Plus the fact that the FAU game was a Thursday night and we had to deal with the already pretty terrible Boca rush hour traffic.

All good. I definitely tailgate on the front-end, but I am usually desperate to get back to the real world after a game in Tally or Hogtown.

 

[Hurracanes]

Between the Marlins Park fiasco and how toxic the Beckham deal at Melreese has become, stadium deals in Miami are politically radioactive... a referendum to approve a stadium at Tropical Park would be a major uphill battle.

Plus, you're underestimating the fact that people like the park just being a park.

None of those situations discussed about upgrading a high school stadium and building new one, building 8-10 new softball/baseball fields, batting cages, playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, swimming pools, healthcare building/resources, etc. The park will still be a “park” 99.8 % of the year. Imagine being a commissioner and turning that down without touching a tax payers money..

To your point, our corrupted officials could turn a good thing down.

 

[Pentagon Cane]

I have never been to another CFB stadium besides ours, unless I was completely trashed, so I don't remember. How do these little SEC towns handle this sort of traffic on gameday? I can imagine 55k people driving into the middle of Athens or Tuscaloosa would wreak even more havoc on their infrastructure than it would in Miami.

A lot of these campuses have a lot of available land or commuter parking lots. The closest I could get for the Clemson game was a general parking lot about 1 mile away from the stadium. LSU has a lot of open fields near the baseball stadium which is about a half mile away from Tiger Stadium. Maryland same situation as Clemson. It is catch as catch can. I would imagine when we go up to Gainesville that it will be a nightmare. It is definitely congested around their stadium. The old campus is not so green as it was in the 80s. I haven't been to Doak in 20 years, but I remember I had to park near the Convention Center. Virginia Tech has a lot of available space. UVA not so much.

The biggest difference is you cannot find an available hotel room near the stadium or even in town for game weekend. Many of these rooms are booked within hours after schedules come out.

 

[NCCanefan]

Couple of crazy ideas (and I'll defer to you since you still live down that way)...

Are there any OTHER schools (besides CGHS) that are in older buildings and that would benefit from a relocation to a new site? I'm not trying to pick on schools, I'm just not completely against it, my middle school (in Orlando) was torn down after a new one (about 2 miles away) was built. They even used the same name of the school (Teague).

And what about...cemeteries? They aren't exactly the type of "development" that localities covet, and there are a lot of trends away from burial. Obviously, it's a hot and touchy subject, but it is worth a larger (and later) public discussion.

This is so fla, land of the lowest viewing of TV sports in the nation. No chance a politician is going to vote to churn or "move" the folks in a cemetery to build a sports stadium. You'd get run out of town by the older folks that vote.

 

[Juancane]

I have never been to another CFB stadium besides ours, unless I was completely trashed, so I don't remember. How do these little SEC towns handle this sort of traffic on gameday? I can imagine 55k people driving into the middle of Athens or Tuscaloosa would wreak even more havoc on their infrastructure than it would in Miami.

In alot of these towns, people arrive like thursdays in their big RV's and start tailgating and spending time on campus for like two days. They then stay after the game till sunday and take their time leaving. Its a freaking event. Thats part of the college town experience i guess. That helps some in that most have designated areas for this kinda stuff that takes a small but decent size of the traffic.

 

[itsacanething]

None of those situations discussed about upgrading a high school stadium and building new one, building 8-10 new softball/baseball fields, batting cages, playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, swimming pools, healthcare building/resources, etc. The park will still be a “park” 99.8 % of the year. Imagine being a commissioner and turning that down without touching a tax payers money..

To your point, our corrupted officials could turn a good thing down.

the reason I said it were up to the commission it could get done is because of the corruption. they wouldn't be able to resist the kickbacks from the contractors and making their friends and themselves rich in the process.

 

[NCCanefan]

I'm a bit confused by this, and I'm not arguing, I'm just providing another perspective.

I've been going to the UM-F$U games since 1986. Maybe the last couple have not been bad, due to both teams sucking, but the vast majority of traffic for the games in Tallahassee comes from the east. Most people exit at US 90, and there is usually slow traffic that starts AT the exit, and extends for over 5 miles. Maybe the rise of Waze/Google Maps has convinced people to get off at the US 319 exit now. Regardless, there's only one major east-west road (Tennessee Street) and one major north-south street (Monroe) once you get within a mile or two of the stadium. There are usually a ton of cops around (it IS the state capital), and if you know where you are going, you can take side streets to get to your parking complex more quickly. Getting INTO Doak isn't terrible, as people arrive at a wide variety of times, but exiting Doak and the surrounding areas is a DISASTER. There aren't many hotels in the area, so people are desperately trying to get back to civilization on I-10, which is nowhere near as wide as it needs to be for gameday traffic, though it is GREAT when you are simply trying to avoid exiting in Tallahassee because you are super-focused on getting to Jacksonville or Pensacola.

I've been going to the UM-UiF games since 1986, plus I have a graduate degree from UiF. While I-75 is one lane wider in each direction than I-10, you still have similar issues with gameday traffic. Most of the Hogtown gameday traffic comes from the south (Orlando/Tampa/Miami), though there has been a growing flow from Jacksonville which can access Hogtown from the backside, on 24, 26, or 20. Even though there are three main roads you can take to get towards the campus (Williston, Archer, and Newberry), we all know that nearly everyone takes Archer, due to the high concentration of national chain restaurants and stores that fill both sides of the road. ****, I recently got off at Archer (to gas up at Wawa) in the mid-afternoon on a weekday, and it was a DISASTER. Expansion of the area around Shands, as well as ongoing construction, turned a 2.5 mile errand into a 25 minute suicide-contemplation. I can only imagine the 2022 gameday traffic. The only thing that makes EXITING Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium tolerable is that Hogtown has SLIGHTLY more hotels, and the fact that the Gaytor fans like to try to recapture their drunken/rapey college glory days by spending a few hours in their favorite local name-changed-since-they-were-there bars as they silently pray that someone recognizes them and shouts out their name in a postive fashion.

UCF might just be the best of the bunch, largely because it has the smallest stadium of the three (though the largest student population, the vast majority of which cannot get into the games due to the disparity between enrollment and stadium capacity). I've been to many games there, and one of my nephews currently lives in Tower 1, just blocks from the stadium. UCF has fairly close proximity to toll roads such as the East-West Expressway and the Beltway. However, it cannot be denied that Alafaya and University are dual ****-shows on gameday. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of pedestrian and bike traffic, because so much of the housing (and restaurants) are located nearby on Alafaya or University. UCF would greatly benefit from about 10 or 12 pedestrian bridges. UCF has the weird distinction of possibly being worse for PRE-GAME traffic than post-game, as there are HUGE numbers of students who show up to tailgate in the Memory Mall "green" area, and then go home to watch the game on teevee, because there just aren't enough seats to accommodate them.

Overall, I believe that F$U and UCF are better-equipped to utilize police to assist with gameday traffic, while UiF just has to rely on a lot of people just knowing where they are going. Recent "poor performance" has probably helped the gameday traffic situation, but if UiF or F$U ever get good again, or UCF expands the stadium, then it will get bad again. Keep in mind, I have years of experience with the largest sports venue in Florida (Daytona International Speedway), and I cannot emphasize how helpful it is to have a HUGE police presence, potential "one-direction" flow on certain roadways, shuttles, and pedestrian bridges in place. Even then...it takes a while to get into (but especially out of) Daytona on race days.

I thought this phrase in your FSU section was funny----get back to civilization on I-10----. There is no such thing actually.