Gillette Stadium’s renovations include a larger, more prominent lighthouse and a new 22,000-square-foot video board. Work will be complete for the 2023-24 NFL season.populous
More than $4 billion in construction at new and renovated sports facilities is expected to wrap up in the United States and Canada in 2023, according to Sports Business Journal’s annual venue preview, led by a near-record level of spending in the college stadium niche and a surge in minor league stadium projects. Even so, this year’s total will represent a 29% decrease from the $6.2 billion spent on projects that opened in 2022 and marks the third consecutive year of spending declines.
This year’s total is projected to be less than half of the industry’s record high of $11.9 billion set in 2020. However, the more than $28.5 billion in projects that are scheduled to finish from 2024-27 is the largest backlog since SBJ began tracking such data in 1998.
This year’s biggest completions — each with a price tag of about $250 million — will mark the conclusion of a several-year makeover at Wells Fargo Center (an SCI Architects and Structure Tone collaboration); Gillette Stadium’s first major overhaul (Populous); and the construction of a Formula One course on the Las Vegas Strip by Tilke Engineers & Architects.
Miller Electric Center, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 125,000 square-foot new training facility will open before the next NFL season. It was designed by Rossetti, which also completed the Miami Dolphins’ Baptist Health Training Complex that opened in 2021.
The Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix paddock building and grandstands are being built just off The Strip and will be the center of activity around the race in November.Tilke Engineers & Architects
But it’s the $1.7 billion in college stadium construction, matching last year’s record level, that will be the industry’s primary driver in 2023, led by nine-figure football renovation projects at Oregon State, Nebraska and Texas A&M. This year also will see construction completed at one of the more unusually named venues: The new training facility for Michigan State’s football team — the $67 million Tom Izzo Football Building — is named after the school’s longtime men’s basketball coach.
At the minor league level, Major League Baseball-mandated upgrades have spurred significant spending on ballpark infrastructure. The consensus among the architects and Minor League Baseball team officials SBJ spoke to is that nearly every one of the 120 affiliated clubs must do at least something to get up to snuff by Opening Day 2024, regardless of the ballpark’s age or condition.
Assessing an industrywide MiLB cost estimate is a difficult task, these officials said.
“Every ballpark is unique and so much depends not only on how new the venue is but on how much extra built-out space it has, where that space is located and how, or even if, it can be repurposed,” one longtime team owner said.
For example, the installation of new LED light systems costs $750,000-$850,000, according to several sources. Although most of these can be done with existing stanchions, ballparks with older poles will need to invest “significantly” more. Similarly, a new playing surface usually costs $750,000-$1 million, an expense that soars if the contractors need to dig deep, or there are drainage or other infrastructure issues.
But other requirements, such as building larger clubhouses, training facilities, and changing rooms for women, can be so expensive (or simply not possible to do given the ballpark’s design), that it will be cheaper to build a new ballpark. As such, $350 million in new ballparks are under construction in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Richmond, Va.; and Hagerstown, Md.
THE YEAR AHEAD
A major contributor to the construction surge comes via continued expansion of the professional soccer pyramid, where more than a dozen projects, totaling nearly $2 billion, are underway.
Since 1999, when the USL Charleston (S.C.) Battery and the Columbus Crew debuted the country’s first professional soccer-only stadiums, more than $7 billion has been spent building venues specifically for major and minor league soccer teams in the U.S. and Canada, according to SBJ research.
On the arena side, the $130 million F&M Bank Arena (a Rufus Johnson Associates/Convergys Design Group/Skanska USA collaboration) will serve as home to Austin Peay State University’s basketball squads and has two sheets of ice. The Nashville Predators’ Sabertooth Sports & Entertainment division will be responsible for the county-owned building’s day-to-day operations, including booking events, and will handle marketing and premium seat sales for all the university’s revenue-generating sports. Also, on the increasingly busy hockey front, the opening of Sacred Heart University’s Martire Family Arena and Midco Arena at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, S.D. (both designed by JLG Architects), brings the spending level for that segment to nearly $1 billion since 2010.
The $120 million Miller Electric Center will house the Jacksonville Jaguars football and operations staff and training and medical facilities. It also includes two grass practice fields and an indoor field.rossetti
Venues built to help drive sports tourism through the hosting of large tournaments, such as the new $38 million Alachua County Sports and Events Center in Gainesville, Fla., will generate $150 million in construction costs this year, and will top $200 million in 2024. Florida is one of 22 states that provides an event procurement fund and/or a grant program that allows organizations to seek funding to lure events to the state, according to the recently published Stoll Report on State Event Funds, which analyzes state-level event funding mechanisms for the sports events and tourism industry.
Similarly, the new $100 million Flatrock Motorsports Park is expecting to capitalize on the growing popularity of open-wheel racing in the U.S. with both a luxury, resort-like, members-only experience on part of the 800-acre site outside Knoxville, Tenn., and with an open-to-the-public mixed-use development.
Miller Electric Centerrossetti
BOOM TIMES PROJECTED
Half of the $28.5 billion that is in various stages of yet-to-open sports venue developments will come from the construction of major league stadiums, led by projects such as a new mixed-use complex anchored by the Tennessee Titans; a new home for the Buffalo Bills and Miami FC; and huge makeovers at Progressive Field and Rogers Centre.
Venues built specifically for women’s teams contribute significantly to the boom. The opening this spring of the Las Vegas Aces’ $40 million training facility (Gensler) will be followed next year by a $60 million practice site for the Seattle Storm (ZGF Architects/Shive-Hattery Architects) and a $117 million stadium for the Kansas City Current (Generator Studio, JE Dunn and Monarch Build).
F&M Bank Arena is home to Austin Peay State University basketball and will be operated and marketed by the Nashville Predators’ Sabertooth Sports & Entertainment. The NHL team will schedule events for the facility’s two ice sheets.Miles Markiewicz
Also, the $42 million Love’s Field (Populous) will debut for Oklahoma State softball; a new stadium for Clemson’s women’s lacrosse (HNTB; Garvin Design Group) is part of a $27.5 million project that also includes gymnastics and rowing venues; and Kansas State’s $24 million volleyball arena, Morgan Family Arena (HOK), is set to open this fall.
Foster Pavilion (AECOM), Baylor’s new $185 million arena, and the $200 million update at Texas Tech’s Jones AT&T Stadium (Populous), will make up the biggest price tags on college campuses in 2024.
A $108 million makeover of Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, for example, the spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins, was approved in 2019 and scheduled to start in 2021. But a pandemic-related decrease in tourism tax revenue, a primary source of the project’s funding, and supply chain issues pushed the project to its now-expected 2025 completion.
