Adam Sparks

asparks@tennessean.com

The time for a new Vanderbilt football stadium may have arrived.

Athletic director David Williams wants to accelerate plans to construct a new stadium for the Commodores, and is meeting with university planners and financial officers later this month.

“Even before I took over (as AD in 2003), people were saying, ‘Stadium, stadium, stadium’ because everybody was building stadiums,” Williams said. “But there hadn’t been serious talk internally about it before this.

“When you look at SEC stadiums, we are not in the same ballpark as the rest of them. That’s not a secret.”

The other 13 SEC schools have overhauled their football stadiums in the past 15 years, with those projects costing more than $1.2 billion combined. The last major renovation to Vanderbilt Stadium was in 1981. Less expensive additions for new turf and a video board have glossed its appearance in recent years.

Williams said plans for a new stadium, or at least a major renovation, are only in the preliminary stages, but the project is now a top priority in the athletic department.

Looking at same location

Williams said an off-campus plan will be considered, but that’s an unlikely scenario.

“Off campus? You never say never, so we’ll look at it,” Williams said. “But there are sports that seem to play on campus better, and football is one of those.”

Building a stadium at the site of the current facility is most likely, Williams said. He doesn't want another renovation.

Vanderbilt Stadium has undergone multiple renovations since its initial construction in 1922. The 1981 massive face-lift was akin to building a new facility, but the current stadium is still a patchwork of the past century.

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And there's little room for expansion. The Nashville Marriott hotel is to the north. Hawkins Field baseball stadium is immediately to the east. Jess Neely Drive is to the south. And Natchez Trace is to the west.

Williams would like to find a few more feet somewhere in the existing space to expand the narrow concourse, what he considers a weakness of the current stadium.

“You need to make a bigger footprint where the stadium is now, but you would probably have to impede on (Natchez Trace) or the sidewalk. I don’t know if we could do that or not,” Williams said. “We are pretty landlocked, at least if you’re talking about building something of that magnitude. But there are no other places on campus to build.”

Could come sooner than later

Williams said he wants to build a new stadium in the next three or four years, but that depends on the speed of fundraising. Preliminary discussions started with Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos, and earlier this week Williams was slated to meet with Eric Kopstain, vice chancellor for administration, and Brett Sweet, vice chancellor for finance, to narrow the plan. However, that meeting was postponed until the last week of September due to scheduling conflicts.

“What can we do? How do we pay for it? That’s what they will be able to tell me,” Williams said. “We will do our due diligence to make sure the final plan is feasible before we take it to (Zeppos and the Board of Trust).”

Beth Fortune, Vanderbilt vice chancellor of public affairs, said neither she nor Zeppos would "have anything to add" to what Williams has said on the stadium initiative. Likewise, coach Derek Mason deferred comment to Williams on stadium matters while he focuses on coaching his team during the season.

There are plenty of contingencies for Williams, Kopstain and Sweet to discuss. Paying a premium price could get the facility built during one offseason, but the likely scenario would require Vanderbilt to play one season at another home field — probably the Titans’ Nissan Stadium. But Vanderbilt is far from that stage right now.

Other recent Vanderbilt athletics projects are done or winding down. A $6.5 million renovation to the McGugin Center athletic training room was completed this spring. The new baseball complex is under construction and scheduled to be finished at the beginning of the 2018 season, and the entire $12 million has been raised to complete it.

“So the (football) stadium is the next project, and it’s time to look at it in a real way,” Williams said. “We will have to go a long way with it because we are talking about a price tag we’ve never dealt with before.”

Better but not bigger

A new stadium probably would cost between $60 million and $90 million, or perhaps more depending on amenities and several other factors, Williams said. He wants a new stadium to be better but not necessarily bigger.

Vanderbilt Stadium has a capacity of 40,550, and a new facility would have a similar amount of seating. In the previous five seasons (2011-15), the Commodores averaged 34,526 in attendance at home games.

In 2014, Vanderbilt completed a $31 million multipurpose indoor practice facility, funded by a combination of philanthropy and university investment, according to the school’s athletics website.

Williams said a new stadium would be paid through several sources, including donations, ticket revenue, luxury suite sales and perhaps corporate naming rights.

Like with the multipurpose facility, Williams said any pitch to the Board of Trust to build a new stadium would be helped if there were other uses for the facility.

For example, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest house offices in their football stadiums. Florida State’s Doak Campbell Stadium has a restaurant and the university’s school of hospitality academic program. And Ohio State previously had a non-athletic dorm for students within its stadium walls until it was demolished during a 1999 renovation.

“To get the bang for your buck, especially at a private university, you can’t just ask people for a lot of money for a stadium that will be used seven times a year (for home games),” Williams said. “So you’ve got to ask what else can happen at a stadium.”

Possible partners with MLS

Williams is on a 22-member organizing committee trying to land a future Major League Soccer expansion franchise in Nashville. He said “initially soccer folks are looking for a soccer-dedicated stadium,” but Williams is open to a possible partnership in sharing a new stadium if it created additional revenue for Vanderbilt.

Nashville businessman Bill Hagerty, who is leading the push for an MLS expansion franchise in Nashville, said the possibility of playing MLS soccer at a future new Vanderbilt football stadium “has potential.” He characterized talks regarding the concept as preliminary.

“It’s certainly an interesting concept that we would not disregard without giving it full consideration,” said Hagerty, former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development under Republican Gov. Bill Haslam.

“It’s something we would think about,” he added. “Obviously, we want to do it in partnership with the city, with the mayor’s office. It’s not just a unilateral process here. We’ve not eliminated anything at this point.”

A newly constructed stadium, on campus, is preferable, Williams said.

“A new stadium does not need to be tied to me or any one person. But if I happen to be around, I’d love to open that sucker,” Williams said. “But whether I’m here or not, we need a new football stadium. It’s time for it. We need to get it done.”

Joey Garrison contributed to this report.

Reach Adam Sparks at 615-259-8010 and on Twitter @AdamSparks.

LAST MAJOR RENOVATION TO SEC STADIUMS

School/Stadium/Cost/Year Completed

Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium: $65.6 million (2010)

Arkansas’ Razorback Stadium: $110 million (2001)

Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium: $43 million (2004)

Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium: $28 million (2008)

Georgia’s Sanford Stadium: $33 million (2004)

Kentucky’s Commonwealth Stadium: $120 million (2015)

LSU’s Tiger Stadium: $80 million (2014)

Mississippi State’s Davis-Wade Stadium: $75 million (2014)

Missouri’s Memorial Stadium: $46.5 million (2014)

Ole Miss’ Vaught-Hemingway Stadium: $43.5 million (2016)

South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium: $14.5 million (2015)

Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium: $140 million (2010)

Texas A&M’s Kyle Field: $485 million (2015)

Vanderbilt Stadium: $10.1 million (1981)

Note: Excludes smaller more recent renovations like video board or turf.

VANDERBILT STADIUM TIMELINE

1892: Old Dudley Field (later Curry Field) first used as home field.

1922: New Dudley Field dedicated as first stadium in South used exclusively for college football.

1949: New press box and seats added to west side for capacity of 27,901.

1960: Additional seats on east side expands capacity to 34,000.

1970: AstroTurf installed for $250,000.

1981: Major renovation/new construction yields Vanderbilt Stadium.

1998: JumboTron video screen installed as Tennessee Oilers play home games there.

2002: Dudley Field natural grass surface renovated after upgrades in 1999.

2003: North end zone bleacher section removed.

2009: Gates 2 & 3 renovated.

2011: New natural grass playing surface installed.

2012: New artificial turf, video board and berm seating in north end zone added.

Source: Vanderbilt (vucommodores.com)