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Colorado State Stadium, which will host its first game Saturday, puts football back on the Fort Collins campus.
Photo by: TIM O’HARA
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Colorado State’s new football stadium gives the Mountain West Conference school a higher profile among non-power five schools and, for the first time in nearly 50 years, a home on campus.
“For 49 years, we hosted football in a location that didn’t allow for direct interaction with the university,” CSU Athletic Director Joe Parker said. Hughes Stadium, the Rams’ old facility, sits two miles west of the Fort Collins school.
Colorado State Stadium
■ Location: Fort Collins, Colo.
■ Project cost: $220 million
■ Architect: Populous
■ Construction manager: Mortenson
■ Owner’s representative: Icon Venue Group
■ Total square footage: 727,000
■ Fixed seats: 36,500, plus standing room for 5,000
■ Premium seats: 23 suites, 821 outdoor club seats, 148 indoor club seats, 224 loge box seats
■ Branded spaces: New Belgium Porch (north end zone), Orthopedic & Spine Center of the Rockies Field Club (field level, west side)
■ Concessionaire: Spectra
■ Video board: Panasonic
■ Sustainability: Projected to be LEED Silver
Source: SportsBusiness Journal research
“It’s about how can we build a strategy to engage as many stakeholder groups as possible to campus,” Parker said.
Keeping that goal in mind, Parker thinks Colorado State now features one of the best and most intimate college football venues in the country. Design highlights of the $220 million stadium, which opens Saturday with Colorado State’s game versus Oregon State, include one of the first field-level clubs in the college space as well as the New Belgium Porch, sponsored by the craft brewer based in Fort Collins.
Colorado State was on the front end of public beer sales in college football, for years allowing fans of legal drinking age to buy adult beverages at Hughes Stadium. At the new facility, the New Belgium Porch, a 1,200-capacity standing room space in the north end, is a $400 add-on for season-ticket holders. The porch has two bars and three levels of drink rails, giving the school the flexibility to book the outdoor area on non-game days. The old-school bicycles hanging from the ceiling establish the theme for Fat Tire, New Belgium’s signature brew.
The brewer’s deal is valued at about $5 million over 10 years, Parker said.
“New Belgium has a great corporate personality and is very creative with different artwork on display,” he said. “There are great views to the field. You’re looking directly at the video board in the south end, the largest in the Mountain West and three times bigger than we had before.”
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A common area on the suite level (above) and one of the 23 suites (below). All premium inventory, which also includes loge boxes and club seats, sold out by October 2016.
Photos by: TIM O’HARA
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The field-level club is named for the local Orthopedic & Spine Center of the Rockies. It’s situated at midfield on the west side, behind the home bench. The Rams pass through the indoor lounge on their way to and from the field, similar to the setups at the stadiums of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers.
Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium also served as a model for developing CSU’s 36,500-seat facility, as well as Baylor’s McLane Stadium. Populous designed all three buildings.
“They’re not in a power five conference, so it’s not as big with as much square footage,” said Myron Chase, a senior architect and principal with Populous who worked on Minnesota and Colorado State. “But it still has all the amenities of a power five stadium. You just don’t have the 50,000 to 100,000 seats.”
All premium seat inventory sold out by October 2016, two months ahead of projections, Parker said. The 23 suites are priced at $35,000 and $45,000 a year, depending on the number of seats. The 148 indoor club seats cost $2,300 a person, and the 821 outdoor clubs seats are $1,500 a person.
The 43 loge boxes, distributed in groups of four and six seats, cost $12,000 and $16,000 a year. All premium seats were sold in three-, five- and seven-year contracts, generating $3 million a year to help pay debt service on the stadium, Parker said.
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At the New Belgium Porch in the north end zone, bicycles symbolize the brewer’s Fat Tire brand. An alumni center (below) is built into one corner of the stadium
Photo by: DON REICHERT / CSU ATHLETICS
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Photo by: JOE MENDOZA / CSU
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The new stadium drove overall season-ticket sales to just under 15,000 in mid-August, compared with four seasons ago, when there were just 6,700 season-ticket holders at Hughes Stadium.
The “lift” in season-ticket numbers would not have occurred at the old building, he said. In addition, a new priority seating program tied to donations has all season-ticket holders making financial contributions on top of their ticket price. In the past, CSU was not as disciplined applying that key piece of fundraising, and some people weren’t contributing at the level required, Parker said.
The school is in search of a naming-rights partner in tandem with Campus+, a division of Learfield, the school’s multimedia rights holder. Parker does not expect to get a deal done this football season.
Apart from that potential deal, an anonymous donor gave the school $20 million to transfer the name Sonny Lubick Field from the old stadium to the new one, he said. Lubick, who coached CSU from 1993 to 2007, compiled a 108-74 record and won six conference titles.
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The Orthopedic & Spine Center of the Rockies Field Club, one of the first field-level clubs in the college space. Below, a dining area inside the club.
Photo by: JOE MENDOZA / CSU
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Photo by: TIM O’HARA
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