Major renovations are coming to Plaster Stadium — it’s just a matter of “when?” and “how much will it cost?”
New Missouri State athletic director Patrick Ransdell said he has multiple meetings with design and construction entities over the coming months regarding the Bears football stadium. Ransdell said the stadium will become a major talking point in his frequent meetings with new Missouri State President Dr. Richard “Biff” Williams very soon.
Plaster Stadium opened in 1941 and has undergone numerous renovation projects since. Notably, the former “Briggs Stadium” added an upper deck and press box in 1991 and was permanently renamed after receiving a reported $1.5 million gift from Robert W. Plaster to finish its construction. About $13 million in renovations were completed in 2014, opening the west-side student-section bleachers.
The venue will be considered among the worst in the FBS once the Bears join Conference USA in 2025.
“There’s some ideas that have been started before I got here and I’m going to have my own opinion on certain things,” Ransdell said. “It’s going to be hard to build facilities that don’t have a revenue component to it. You gotta pay for it somehow and there’s only so much private money that you can go out there and get. Every time we do a project, we have to ask ‘How can we generate revenue out of it?'”
Ransdell said he hopes to have shovels in the ground within the next 18 months, noting the timeline could be extended or moved quicker. He’s been a part of multiple stadium renovation projects as an athletics administrator, including during his time at Appalachian State and Central Florida.
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How much could Missouri State put into Plaster Stadium renovations?
Ransdell said he and Williams will have to navigate through the state, hoping to receive some funding for the potential project. The Missouri process will be different than those he experienced in Florida and North Carolina, leaving him unaware of how long it could take.
It’s unclear how much Missouri State will put toward renovations. At a recent football fundraiser, Williams floated a $100 million figure that would go into the program. In a separate interview, he called it “probably an honest figure” while noting it would probably be a nine-figure project “over time.”
“We’re going to have to get creative with some of the ideas we have,” Ransdell said. “We’re going to have to look at that and be as creative as we can very early on.”
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What is Patrick Ransdell’s first priority with Plaster Stadium renovations?
Getting Missouri State football the things it needs to be competitive with the upper-third of Conference USA programs is Ransdell’s priority while noting the entire east side of the stadium needs a major facelift.
Ideas of turning McDonald Arena into a football facility with locker rooms, a weight room and coaches’ offices have been floated in recent months. Missouri State previously explored building a new facility in the north endzone of Plaster Stadium that would have cost north of $20 million but the idea has seemingly gone away.
Missouri State football’s main locker room and coaching offices are located at the Forsythe Athletics Center, located just over 500 feet north of Plaster Stadium. Football shares the facility, constructed in 1980, with several other sports.
“Obviously, football has to be addressed and what they have at Forsythe versus us needing to be closer to the stadium,” Ransdell said. “McDonald is an option. I want to have two or three options that we’re kind of going down all at the same time that’s going to buy us some time to figure some things out revenue-wise. If we have two or three options that we’re going down and then there’s a point where we have to pick one, we’ll make the best decision at that time.”
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What can be done to the east side of Plaster Stadium?
Heading into Missouri State football’s home opener against Lindenwood, Ransdell had yet to see the infamous Plaster Stadium restrooms that are a thing of nightmares. He has seen the suites, noting they’re dated and need to be “reimagined.” He said the football team needs to be moved out of the Plaster Stadium weight room, one that has fallen behind a few local high schools.
“Everything in that building is dated,” Ransdell said. “That whole thing is going to have to be reimagined on some level. There are some cool aspects that we can get creative with and blow out some walls and kind of reimagine things. We have to figure that part out but we need to figure out the program stuff first; the stuff for our football program every day and then we’re going to have to check on that.”
Ransdell declined to consider the hypotheticals, even the idea of knocking the whole east side of the stadium down and building up. More conversations are needed.
“Those are things where our contractors and our architects are going to need to help get us real numbers,” Ransdell said. “We can sit here and throw out a bunch of numbers and see what sticks against the wall. Right now, it’s just kind of hypotheticals but we’re going to need to get into some hard, real numbers at some point.”
Ransdell hopes to have more “hard numbers” within six to eight months.
What is Patrick Ransdell’s vision for premium seating at Plaster Stadium?
Ransdell’s eyes light up at the mention of adding premium seating at Plaster Stadium. It’s a must when targeting the 30-45-year-old demographic on gamedays, he said.
“The younger crowd loves those kinds of social spaces,” Ransdell said. “Your older crowd likes more suites and club seating and things like that. We need a club, we need more suites and that’s what people want to buy and that’s the stuff that actually moves the needle rather than a traditional bleacher seat.”
Could other Missouri State facilities get a facelift?
Ransdell has seen most of Missouri State’s athletic facilities, believing they’re in the upper third of what they’ll compete against in Conference USA. He’s already told baseball coach Joey Hawkins that he wants to take groundballs at Hammons Field and believes Great Southern Bank Arena will immediately be the best basketball venue in CUSA.
There will be facelifts to the different venues, he said. He doesn’t want them to look dated while making sure his coaches have everything they need. Ransdell said there may be an opportunity to expand the seating at Missouri State’s soccer venue.
“It doesn’t mean when we have good facilities that we can’t always think of continuing to upkeep,” Ransdell said. “Then all of a sudden, you’ll turn around in 10 years and wonder ‘what happened to this facility?'”
How will Missouri State athletics pay for facility upgrades?
In an interview that lasted just over 30 minutes, Ransdell said “revenue” eight times. It’s apparent the new MSU AD is all about finding different ways to generate funds. It’s something his former boss, Tennessee AD Danny White, told the News-Leader that Ransdell is excellent at producing.
Revenue will come from a new ticket model that Ransdell will likely introduce for football ahead of its Conference USA move in 2025. The aforementioned state funding will be a process over the next year in addition to Ransdell’s efforts in establishing new corporate relationships and fundraising with the adjustments he makes to the Bears Fund.
Ransdell admitted there will likely be a point when Missouri State athletics looks into doing a capital campaign, much like one he was previously in charge of at Appalachian State which raised about $52 million of its $100 million goal by the third year in a seven-year campaign.
“It’s going to be a fun year to kind of value things and lay the groundwork for what’s going to come in the next five-to-10,” Ransdell said. “Hopefully they’ll have me around for the next 10.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-16 21:07:00
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