Grandfathered in? No? Or... he's using the "needed renovations" as an excuse to make The Swamp more like an NFL stadium and reducing capacity in the process? The Gators are selling out the Swamp constantly, it's too bad. Now they have an excuse to raise the ticket prices for the fewer fans that will be in the stands. As it stands right now, it's the 11th highest capacity football stadium in the country, soon to become more like Kroger field. Either way, I'm over it. And I can't stand that AD.
I only know houses and not building but nothing is grandfathered in if you go past a certain percentage/$amount when doing renovations. Its the reason some houses go through renovation stages as to never need to comply.
"fall into disrepair"? What a load of bunk. Gonna get as bad as pro teams stealing from their local city for their stadiums.
Give it up Rick, Nothing and I mean NOTHING about what college football used to be, what Florida Football used to be, will exist in the near future. That includes infrastructure and fan participation. Dude, it's all about money. Lower income fans and families are shut out and middle income fans and families are close to it. If one is not a season ticket holder, go check the price for the cheapest nosebleed ticket for the Texas game - $450.00 bucks. Family of four - $1,800.00. That's just for tickets, now add in parking, concessions, memorabilia, and Gator Gear. Want to stay overnight? Which many fans want to do, add in the hotel costs, meal costs, gas, tolls and a family of four better have AT LEAST $3,000.00 for that trip and that's staying at the motel 6 or red roof Inn. $3,000.00 dollars. Collegiate sports have gone the way of the NFL, build more luxury box's for the 2.5% of Americans that can drop 50K (or 100K or whatever it is) a year to sit behind glass and be waited on hand and foot. Reduce the swamp to 70 - 75K, lose the atmosphere and competitive advantage so the rich folks can drink mint julips and eat filet Mignon and lobster and not break a sweat. The students? Who cares about them? Greed has taken over every aspect of the sport, EVERY ASPECT.
Not sure who is feeding him the info on the Accessibility Code issues but he needs better people around him. First, ADA is NOT a building code. It is the guideline for state adoption and we in Florida call it the Florida Accessibility Code and is part of the overall FBC. Second, if you read that code, maintenance by itself does not trigger bringing accommodations up to code. You can replace chillers, light fixtures, broken toilets etc. without worry. If you are making improvements (like adding luxury boxes, restaurants and things), then that triggers upgrading accessibility but only according to the code. You take 20% of the renovation value and apply it to upgrading accessibility features in a specific priority order. First, accessible parking, then an accessible route to the building, then accessible entrances (doors), then toilets, and other equipment and last is accessible telephones (which is in the code for some reason). Last, you don't have to bring every portion up to code. You have to have a certain percentage of seats that meet the accessibility requirements and they need to be spread out over the stadium to cover all price levels of tickets. Now, if he is talking about upgrading means of egress / life safety requirements, that is a completely different issue and has nothing to do with accessibility.
Its obvious that he's lying his ass off. The stadium is already up to ADA code. Only extensive structural rebuilding will trigger bringing it up to current building codes (fire, ingress, egress, etc) that only tangentially have anything to do with ADA. Its too bad the sportswriters that are covering the program are too dumb to call him on it.
Disagree. He's not lying his ass off. The stadium was originally constructed 95 years ago. The most recent expansion was 2008. The most recent ADA design requirements were finalized in 2010. The Swamp is not up to current ADA code. I am not an expert on any of this, but I do know that the aisles in the stadium are steep. For many older Gator fans or fans with mobility issues (or fans who had too much to drink at the tailgate), having handrails would be much safer, and much appreciated. But the ADA requires a certain width of the stair on each side of a handrail, so installing handrails would require eliminating one or two seats on each side of the aisle. Multiply that by the number of aisles, and number of rows, and that would result in a loss of at least 3,000 seats. For just one ADA-required improvement. Whether it is worth reducing the Swamp's capacity to accommodate handrails, in order to make negotiating the aisles safer and more convenient is something that can be debated. There is currently very little wheelchair seating available. Providing more wheelchair access and seating would also decrease the overall Swamp capacity to some degree. These are just two examples, and I'm sure there are more. It's not an easy fix. So to say that the Swamp is "already up to ADA code" is inaccurate.
Maybe he shouldn’t tell everyone they’re renovating. Maybe no one would notice and they could get by without pulling permits.
Article says starting point 5k reduction “Stricklin said the goal in the renovation is to minimize the loss of capacity, which early estimates have at 83,000 post-renovations.” furthermore per SS “There will be a new structure built to accommodate some of the seat loss that the ADA code will impact.” Get ready for an extensive reno of the current seating configuration
Whatever. The players are there primarily for the money, not the school or education, so I don't think they really GaS about fan support beyond that. SS clearly feels the same. I made the decision long ago to avoid pro football. That once meant the NFL. Then it meant Arena league, too. And now it means the NCAA as well.
