HighlandsBuff
Well-Known Member
Interesting to me that Ryan Stadium, build in '26, wouldn't have a similar issue, especially with the article saying it's a tear down.. Also, the only FBS stadium without lights. Who knew.
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Northwestern's stadium project
- Thread starter Buffnik
- Start date
Interesting to me that Ryan Stadium, build in '26, wouldn't have a similar issue, especially with the article saying it's a tear down.. Also, the only FBS stadium without lights. Who knew.
If I remember correctly, we were one of the last to have permanent lights installed. I remember night games in the late 90s where they had to bring in temporary lights.
Looked it up - added circa 2009 - Big 12 helped pay for it, oddly enough.
Lights!
Is Balch a "historically significant building" because of the talk over the years of maybe putting a multi story hotel or something, and Boulder did that to say no?
CU IT guy
Well-Known Member
No idea, but this is the first I've heard of a hotel.
Maybe it was just an idea floated here then.
The issue, I believe, with both Potts and Prentup is that the Boulder Campus Master Plan at various times have included the construction of buildings on those fields.
One of the recent plans also stated that the Married Housing below the stadium has reached end of life and is functionally obsolete. The plan mentioned demolition and replacement with a higher density project goal for the site which is underutilized right now. These may become married housing plus dorms. Or it could become all dorms and then the old apartment dorms near Prentup could targeted for updated married housing. I dont know what the numbers are like for married folks coming to CU or any campus these days but Id assume its falling from where it was in say the 1950s.
Social Media influences decisions heavily now. Students like to live near campus and swanky dorms with a Starbucks inside and a Rec Center and that stuff gets posted on tik tok ugly or cool. Universities also realize they could build apartments or apartment like dorms and capture money thats otherwise been going mostly to private land owners around campus without benefiting CU. This is what I think replaces married housing.
Anyway, If some combination of that happened Id assume that would trigger a temporary or permanent move of Soccer and Track to South Campus.
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The city of Boulder has no authority over anything on campus. Every deal where CU does something in agreement with the city is CU playing nice.
Yep. If CU owns it, it is under state purview not city or county. Maybe the biggest benefit of being a state university. CU doesn't have to abide by Boulder restrictions on building height, lighting, etc. The university chooses to be a good neighbor.
So then sounds like IT GUY isn't right about Boulder designating Balch a historical landmark or whatever
HighlandsBuff
Well-Known Member
I have not idea whether it is or isn't on the landmark list, but notwithstanding the City's inability to actually stop CU from tearing it down, they certainly could put it on such a list and make CU look the bad guy for tearing it down, if they choose.
The city can designate it as a historical structure and list it on their registry. The point is that the university has no legal requirement to abide by any restrictions the city (or county or any other local authority) would put on it.
As Nik and Torero correctly state any cooperation between the campus and the city is strictly being a good neighbor.
The only actual leverage that the city has over the school is their ability to limit further water supply and to limit access to city owned streets, and even those the school could probably force in court.
It is though common not only here but across the country that local jurisdictions will list buildings and other locations as historically or otherwise significant even though that designation provides no actual legal protection. Part of the reason for this is that while they don't have legal weight those designations do carry weight in terms of public opinion. It is easier to stir up public opposition when a project impacts something that has been designated.
CU IT guy
Well-Known Member
It may not be the city of boulder, but I can tell you there is some agency somewhere that makes doing anything with that building a MAJOR MAJOR pain in the rear.
This. Boulder City cannot designate anything as historic. They tried with a series of houses (bungalows) near university and Broadway and CU played nice, but basically told the city to pound sand. The only leverage the city has is utilities (water) which they used to delay development of South Campus. That’s now a different mess.
The building is borderline structurally un-usable. That has a lot to do with the restrictions on modifications/renovations.
Balch is not on the Boulder historic register or the state of Colorado historic register as far as I can tell.
Soccer and Lacrosse should be played in Folsom! Those programs are doing well and the more you can focus usage inside Folsom, the better. Shrink capacity to about 42,000, bigger seats with backs, with a real sideline area. So much to make the greatest stadium even better
I'd love that as well but it isn't going to happen.
We didn't consistently sell out when we were good. Attendance for college football is going down nationwide.
Better to maximize revenues than fill more seats at a discount.
No. Better to elevate the program to the point where there’s a steady and reliable demand for 65,000+ tickets. I know that punting and accepting that will never happen is the easy way out. Never let it be said that CU didn’t take the easy way out.
HighlandsBuff
Well-Known Member
How many more people live in Denver/Boulder than in, say 1990? I don't want to google it. But in theory there are more folks around than there used to be.
Hard to say what we could get if we were a consistent 8 game winner.
Tangent- CSU picked a horrid time to build that new stadium in terms of the pandemic and now just being straight awful.
Hard to say what we could get if we were a consistent 8 game winner.
Tangent- CSU picked a horrid time to build that new stadium in terms of the pandemic and now just being straight awful.
HighlandsBuff
Well-Known Member
Couldn't help myself- short answer, way more.
DougCo had 60k people in 1990, now 360k. BoCo has 100k more people than 1990. Denver has gone from 400k to 700k. and so on. Are they mostly transplants who don't give a rip? Sure... but I see lots of avalanche stuff since they got good.
People always support a winner. When the stands are empty the second half of this season, I HOPE the CU admin recognizes the opposite.
This.
Anyone who talks about "the city" stopping anything on campus for any reason other than providing water - is full of ****.