The proposed on-campus stadium at Colorado State Univ. will “cost anywhere from” $220M to more than $400M, as that is “how far apart stadium proponents and opponents are on the actual cost of the multiuse facility nearly 2 1/2 years after it was proposed,” according to Kelly Lyell of the COLORADOAN. The two sides “disagree on the construction costs but also on the school's ability to pay off the debt it will incur from stadium revenues without the use of public money.” With six months remaining in the two-year window CSU was given by its BOG to “raise at least half of the construction costs in private donations in order to move forward, the same basic question remains: Can a stadium can be built without the use of any public money?” CSU AD Jack Graham said he is trying to raise half of the money needed for the "athletic portion" of the project, which he figures will run in the "$220 million to $226 million range." Lyell notes CSU “needs to come up with” $110-113M in donations and pledges to complete the stadium. CSU officials “declined this week to offer details on how much money” they have raised for the project. CSU will have to “finance at least a portion of the construction costs.” How much has to be borrowed and what it will cost to secure that financing is “one of the primary reasons the two groups are more than” $180M apart on the cost of the stadium. ICON Venue Group Senior VP Mike Harms said that “modifications to the original plan, including reducing seating capacity from 42,000 to 36,000 and the addition of 85,000 square feet of academic space, have lowered the cost of the stadium portion” of what now is a $254M structure to $220M (COLORADOAN, 5/5).
