Oklahoma State works on $710M sports Xanadu

April 30, 2008

By JUSTIN SMITH

 

Daily O’Collegian, Oklahoma State U.

For Oklahoma State University, getting the new Athletic Village from dirt mounds to sports complexes is a matter of time and money.

The fund invested into BP Capital needs be worth at least $400 million before beginning more complexes in the Athletic Village.

“At the end of 2007, it was [worth] $330 million,” said Mike Holder, OSU athletic director and president of Cowboy Athletics Inc.

Cowboy Athletics Inc., a nonprofit organization, holds the investment fund started with the $165 million donation that oil tycoon and OSU alumnus Boone Pickens made to the athletic department in January 2006.

Bank of America will credit up to 60 percent of the net asset value of the fund, Holder said.

“We’ve got about $240 million worth of stuff on the books right now,” he said. “We haven’t spent all of it, but by the time we finish the west end zone, finish buying all the properties for the Athletic Village and reconstruct Hall of Fame Avenue, we will have spent $240 million.”

At the fund’s target return rate of 20 percent annually, it will reach $400 million before May 2009, Holder said.

Further increases to $710 million will be needed before the village can be completed, which he expects to happen by March 2012, he said.

The Sherman E. Smith Indoor Practice Facility is the next major structure to be started in the Athletic Village and will cost $40 million, said John Houck, general manager of Cowboys Athletic Facilities LLC.

OSU alumnus Smith donated $20 million toward the practice complex in January 2007.

It features a playing field, which can be a football field, a soccer field, two baseball or softball infields or a track with infield, according to plans and renderings from Sparks Architecture of Tulsa.

The architecture firm hasn’t released any figures on the size of the indoor practice complex.

According to Master Plan maps and renderings, the complex appears to be about half the square footage of Boone Pickens Stadium.

Plans for the other buildings that will replace about 330 residential properties are still in the works, Houck said.

A schedule for the next year is in place, he said.

The general admission seating on the west end of Boone Pickens Stadium should be finished in late August, and the suites and other accommodations should be wrapped up in about a year, Houck said.

Landscaping issues in the Athletic Village, including regrading the dirt south of McElroy Road and managing the floodplain and the creek that runs under the road will also start in the fall, he said.

Other developments in the village include a soccer/track complex, tennis complex and a baseball stadium and practice field, he said.

The equestrian center, which will be built on Highway 51 about one-half mile west of Western Road, will also be a part of athletic development, he said.

“I haven’t even gotten to initial developments yet of those last projects,” Houck said. “I’ll be busy for the next 10 years, probably.”

Hall of Fame Avenue is scheduled to reopen in August and will be for the city’s use, he said.

The city and the university had some issues over the ownership of Hall of Fame Avenue north of the stadium after the university closed it in February 2005.

The matter was resolved in an agreement on July 28, 2006, between city and university officials where the university created an easement for the city to maintain control of Hall of Fame Avenue, according to a university press release.

Now that only a few residents remain in the area, the attention has turned to making the Athletic Village a reality.

All the coaches were optimistic about the Athletic Village.

Coach Mike Gundy said he thinks that when Boone Pickens Stadium is completed a lot more recruits will be attracted to the program.

“Young people want something that’s new and shiny,” Gundy said. “They want to feel like that you have everything that they can take advantage of in order to make themselves a better player.”

The national media coverage that Pickens received after his donation acted as a marketing tool to attract attention to what was happening with the Athletic Village, regardless of whether it was meant to, Gundy said.

“I think everybody in the country now is aware of Oklahoma State University,” Gundy said. “That’s just a fact, the way it is. People know who Donald Trump is; people know who Boone Pickens is.”

Baseball coach Frank Anderson is in his fifth year as coach of the Cowboys and doesn’t know all the details of the planned baseball stadium.

“We don’t know exactly the timetable or anything like that, but no, we’re excited about what they’re doing and what Coach Holder and the athletic department have done to this point and what’s going to be done in the future,” Anderson said.

The Cowboys’ stadium, Allie P. Reynolds Stadium, opened in 1982.

Anderson said the members of the athletic programs got to meet with Sparks Architecture in 2006 to describe what they would like to have at the indoor practice complex.

“I think they’ve taking a little bit of everybody’s (suggestions) and I think it will be just a tremendous facility,” Anderson said.

He said some details about the new baseball stadium, such as offices and workout rooms, have been talked about but nothing has been set.

Softball coach Rich Wieligman said the indoor practice complex will help the team during cold and rainy weather.

“That’s gonna be huge because we do have inclement weather in January and February,” Wieligman said. “And, with the way the size of this building is going to be, we’re gonna be able to have a full-field practice.”

The height of the building is also impressive, he said.

“We won’t be able to hit the ceiling with a fly ball,” he said.

Wieligman, in his second year at OSU, said Cowgirl Stadium is one of the newest sports venues on campus, completed in 2004, so other sports will be focused on first.

He said he thinks the village will set a precedent.

“When you talk about an athletic village, of putting all the sports in one area and the way it’s gonna be developed, I think it’s gonna be beautiful,” he said. “I don’t think it’s like that [at any other college].”

Equestrian coach Larry Sanchez said the new equestrian center’s location will provide more visibility to the program.

The Animal Science Arena has an indoor arena that seats 1,000 and an outdoor arena.

Sanchez said the new center will have double the seating area and a covered outdoor arena.

The athletic improvements will open up many doors for OSU sports, he said.

“In order to compete nationally like Coach Holder is wanting to do in all our sports, we definitely needed to address some facility concerns,” Sanchez said. “And so, I see it as a being a very big positive to the opportunities that all sports are going to have to compete nationally.”