Mick Robinson, associate commissioner for physical affairs for the Montana Board of Regents, said UM gained approval for $5.5 million in funding at the regents' last meeting. Turns out, that is $500,000 more than was originally requested.
“It's just to accommodate a little different design,” Robinson said. “It's basically the same funding stream. One of the changes was an extension of the number of years that some of the fees would have to be used, from five years to six years.”
“It's a go,” said UM associate athletic director Chuck Maes. “We hope to award the bid to a contractor sometime in October or late October, and once the football season is over, we'll turn the stadium over to the contractor. We're asking them to be done in the middle of August (2008) or so.”
Maes said the expansion will be featured on a Web site that he will soon complete. The site leaked out last week and was posted on an Internet message board; soon Maes and other UM officials were inundated with calls.
“I'm trying to get a Web site finished and up. Hopefully that'll be out in the next week or so, to let people look,” Maes said.
The expansion will include a new concourse on the east side of the stadium, closest to Hellgate Canyon. The seats will go in above the private boxes on that side, and stretch roughly from one 15 yard line to the other. Elevator service will be added.
Maes called the 500 covered “stadium club” seats the “centerpiece of the expansion.” But beyond those, there are questions about how many of the remaining 1,500 or so seats will be priority seating - sold to Grizzly Scholarship Association members for an additional $112.50 to $250 - and how many will be strictly reserved seating.
In January, it was announced that 750 seats will be available to students, but Maes said more than 1,000 fans could have a crack at reserved seating.
“It's really hard to say until we really get the entire thing built and see how the seats come out,” Maes said. “But hopefully by October, when we're ready to go out to bid, we'll know exactly what our cutoffs are.”
Maes figures the price for stadium club seating to be around $1,500, which is up from the $1,250 reported in January. At that time, UM athletic director Jim O'Day said once the expansion paid itself off, it would be worth $1.5 million to $1.6 million annually to the athletic department.
Input from fans has been very encouraging, Maes said, adding that it was reminiscent of the last expansion in 2003. That year, 4,004 seats were added above the north end zone, at a cost of $2.5 million. That brought the capacity to 23,183.
“We have a significant waiting list already for non-priority seating,” said Maes. “And a fairly good list for priority seating, and interest in the club is high. It should be exactly like our last expansion, in the north end zone; we should have it sold before we have it open.”
Reporter Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 523-5247 or at fneighbor@missoulian.com
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