Temple Puts On Campus Stadium Feasibility Study On Hold

[Drew]

Background info:

OT - Temple's goal: 35,000-seat, $100 million stadium

OT - Sobering landscape as Temple ponders football stadium

 

[huskyrob1]

Interesting

 

[uconnphil2016]

Maybe it's just a Temple thing. Maybe it's a realization that a number of teams will be bolting soon and they'll be left out of the fold. Hopefully the latter

 

[huskymedic]

This has more to do w/ change in University Administration than anything else @ this point... New President has other financial priorities/challenges @ the moment.

 

[UCFBfan]

Wasnt there also a large local movement to not build the stadium?

Sucks for them but that's the life of being a big city school. Room for on campus stadiums are slim and costly.

I bet this was not totally due to them being a G5 school but more to what medic mentioned.

 

[Ldandy]

Its really hard to justify the enormous cost of building a college football stadium in center city Philadelphia when there is simply no real demand for it among students or residents.

 

[huskymedic]

Philly.com: Temple says no change in status regarding football stadium

 

[Drew]

For their sake, I hope they can get this worked out and get the stadium on campus built. There's just something special about playing football on a college campus in the fall. There are definitely a lot of hurdles they need to get over but it would be really cool to see Temple have a place to call their own on their campus.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

For their sake, I hope they can get this worked out and get the stadium on campus built. There's just something special about playing football on a college campus in the fall. There are definitely a lot of hurdles they need to get over but it would be really cool to see Temple have a place to call their own on their campus.

30-35k on campus would be awesome for them. At the Linc even huge crowds look small unless it's a sellout with lots of opposing fans.

 

[XStorrsion]

Wasnt there also a large local movement to not build the stadium?

Sucks for them but that's the life of being a big city school. Room for on campus stadiums are slim and costly.

I bet this was not totally due to them being a G5 school but more to what medic mentioned.

Yes, this didn't sit well with some local groups. Bulldozing 100 very low income townhouses in relatively ethnic North Philly in order to build a football stadium raised some eyebrows.

I'm not sure that was the nail in the coffin though.

 

[Adios]

The impoverished are being pushed out of cities over time. It's inevitable. Sadly.

 

[huskypantz]

The impoverished are being pushed out of cities over time. It's inevitable. Sadly.

They are priced out of their long-term neighborhoods as improvements occur and rents rise. They end up being pushed to less desirable parts of the city, so the lower income folks become more and more segregated. Not that it hasn't been happening for decades.....but if you're just getting by then you're probably not looking forward to seeing your neighborhood "upgraded".

 

[huskymedic]

Yes, this didn't sit well with some local groups. Bulldozing 100 very low income townhouses in relatively ethnic North Philly in order to build a football stadium raised some eyebrows.

I'm not sure that was the nail in the coffin though.

The land for the proposed stadium is university owned and already occupied by university associated buildings/fields. They will not need to bulldoze any low income townhouse to build the stadium. The main complaints are regarding game-day traffic, parking, tailgating issues, and compression of the neighborhood directly across from the stadium and alongside the stadium by continued University creep (but quite a bit of this area is student rentals already).

 

[huskypantz]

The land for the proposed stadium is university owned and already occupied by university associated buildings/fields. They will not need to bulldoze any low income townhouse to build the stadium. The main complaints are regarding game-day traffic, parking, tailgating issues, and compression of the neighborhood directly across from the stadium and alongside the stadium by continued University creep (but quite a bit of this area is student rentals already).

The irony is that the university has been wiping out much of the blighted blocks in the general area after buying up the land. There may be some exceptions but even when they purchase inhabited row homes I would imagine the former owners are well compensated. It's been a while since I lived down there but that's what I had observed over time.

 

[Drew]

http://temple-news.com/news/stadium-stompers-meet-university-state-representative/

Temple’s top administrators and community officials reopened conversation with the Stadium Stompers last week when the parties — including President Richard Englert — met to discuss Temple’s proposed on-campus football stadium and other community concerns.

The Stadium Stompers, an activist group made up of North Philadelphia residents and students who are against the proposed on-campus stadium, met university officials with the assistance of Rep. Curtis Thomas and his office, said Jackie Wiggins, a member of the Stadium Stompers.

This is the first formal meeting between the Stadium Stompers and Temple’s president since the stadium discussion heated up in October 2015.

Thomas, who attended the meeting, told The Temple News there were several issues discussed, including the stadium, student trash, diversity at Temple and continued communication between the university and surrounding community.

Englert told those in the meeting that the university did not complete the $1.25 million feasibility study, so they could not discuss the stadium “with any specificity,” Thomas said.

The university approved funds for the feasibility study in February 2016. A year later, The Temple News confirmed the feasibility study was put on hold. At the time, the university’s official statement said that Temple was continuing its “community outreach efforts.”

Those efforts included invite-only Community Council meetings, however the stadium was not discussed, Bill Bergman, the vice president for public affairs, told The Temple News in May. Bergman was at the meeting last week.

The news came two months after Temple took the option to continue playing at Lincoln Financial Field for the 2018 season. This is the first of two extensions offered to the football program while the university considers the on-campus stadium.

“The only thing I thought was definitive was the university indicated they will be doing a stadium,” Thomas said. “Now, whether or not there will be a stadium at the proposed location, a feasibility study will speak to that.”

 

[SubbaBub]

AAC payouts are fantastic. You'd have to be nuts to finance a stadium with 5M/per in media revenue.

 

[IMind]

Wasnt there also a large local movement to not build the stadium?

Sucks for them but that's the life of being a big city school. Room for on campus stadiums are slim and costly.

I bet this was not totally due to them being a G5 school but more to what medic mentioned.

There's a large local movement in Philadelphia to not build anything ever. The fact that Philly has some of the worst policies when it comes to affordable housing in the free world compounds the issue. You add that together with the NIMBY folks and the oldsters that think all change is bad and basically nothing gets done, ever.

 

[Drew]

 

[Drew]

 

[upstater]

They are priced out of their long-term neighborhoods as improvements occur and rents rise. They end up being pushed to less desirable parts of the city, so the lower income folks become more and more segregated. Not that it hasn't been happening for decades.....but if you're just getting by then you're probably not looking forward to seeing your neighborhood "upgraded".

There are cities with proper urban planning that address this problem. It isn't hopeless.

 

[gioff23]

There's a large local movement in Philadelphia to not build anything ever. The fact that Philly has some of the worst policies when it comes to affordable housing in the free world compounds the issue. You add that together with the NIMBY folks and the oldsters that think all change is bad and basically nothing gets done, ever.

Please stop. There's movements like that everywhere - see lots of cranes and construction in Hartford? This has nothing to do with affordable housing - it's not an either or proposition. It has to do with $$$$ and whether Temple can find private money (which the hot rumors will tell you they are well on their way).

 

[huskypantz]

There are cities with proper urban planning that address this problem. It isn't hopeless.

I'll take your word for it. I can speak for some areas in Boston that get upgraded (Southie) and end up pricing average joes out quite quickly. Where my wife worked (waterfront area, channel center), there were some projects around the neighborhood, and then the upscale apartments and condos started. Next thing you know the clientele began to drastically change and the rents quickly rose.

 

[huskymedic]

Stadium Stompers will be invigorated:

Temple is still pursuing a stadium, President says

Temple needs to be transparent about the stadium - The Temple News

 

[upstater]

I'll take your word for it. I can speak for some areas in Boston that get upgraded (Southie) and end up pricing average joes out quite quickly. Where my wife worked (waterfront area, channel center), there were some projects around the neighborhood, and then the upscale apartments and condos started. Next thing you know the clientele began to drastically change and the rents quickly rose.

Some cities have had a lot of success by protecting long-time homeowners from rising assessments and taxes. When cities get greedy, you have faster gentrification. Other cities have found success using state and federal housing resources to build small-lot medium income homes instead of only focusing on big lots and lower-income apartment buildings. If cities allow for mixed income housing instead of only subsidized poor or catering to very high incomes, you're going to have a lot gentrification. But if you have policies that put people in middle income homes and allow longtime residents or seniors to afford to live in their homes, you'll have a healthier mix.

Of course, with national income inequality, you are going to have a huge disparity in income that cities can't address by themselves.

 

[huskymedic]

Stadium Stompers will be invigorated:

Temple is still pursuing a stadium, President says

Temple needs to be transparent about the stadium - The Temple News