Rutgers Goes Ahead With Scaled-Back Football Stadium Expansion

Expansion To Rutgers Stadium Will Include 12,000 New Seats, "But Little Else"

The Rutgers Univ. (RU) BOG Friday unanimously approved a "greatly scaled-back plan to complete" a $102M expansion of Rutgers Stadium, which will "add up to 12,000 seats but little else," according to Sherman & Margolin of the Newark STAR-LEDGER. RU will "borrow for the entire amount of the project, conceding it will be unable to rely on private fundraising to bridge a $30[M] hole in the financing." In recent months, "higher-than-anticipated bids drove the cost of the project far above the $102[M] budget first approved by the board, and officials were wrestling over how to cut its scope without eliminating seats." The problem was that "without the revenues from the additional south end zone seating, Rutgers could not pay for what it borrowed to build the first phase of the project -- a new mezzanine section that added 968 premium seats and a club lounge." RU President Richard McCormick Friday told the BOG, "It is not truly feasible to shut this project down, even for a year. We need to build and fill the seats." Under the revised plan, the seats will be "built but the interior will be left unfinished." With RU now "paying the entire bill, the university said it will raise ticket prices to cover the higher cost of borrowing, including a required per-seat donation for all sideline seats" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 12/13). In New Jersey, Patricia Alex noted that the annual "cost of the debt service on the project" is estimated to be almost $7M. But the expansion will increase the capacity of Rutgers Stadium to about 54,000 and "address the problem of long waiting lists for tickets" (Bergen RECORD, 12/13).