Yesterday, Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley made an appearance on ESPN Gainesville's 95.3 FM debut. He had a few things to say about the state of the O'Connell Center renovations and how important having the office of student life will be down the road.
On the O'Dome renovations...
“We’re working like heck to make the budget work on this current project, which we’re gonna make work. Last time we were on here, told you all how committed we were to the project and how I’ve been with Dr. Fuchs several times this summer talking about the project. We’re getting close to putting a bow on this thing and getting a schedule and getting this thing started here in the upcoming years. But tearing it down and starting from scratch, you’re talking over $100 million to get that done. And that’s just revenue and resources we don’t have at this point in time.
“But that being the case -- and I’ve told people and I’m going to say it again, will say it a lot here in the next few months – except from the roof and the side walls, this will be a brand new arena. We are literally gutting the inside. You walk inside and people won’t recognize the O’Connell Center. That’s the intent. It’ll take us into the 21st century as far as arenas are concerned.”
On why they were delayed a year...
“I think once we kind of took the step back, it’s been no different than any other project. A lot of work, a lot of details, a lot of different parties. It’s not an athletic association building – it’s a university building. A lot of different users, groups. I think the thing that probably caused the most heartache, if that’s the right word, is that we were on a fast track. We had an aggressive schedule. ‘We gotta start now, we gotta finish by now.’ And it just wasn’t working. You’ve also got the Office of Student Life project that was being designed – it’s under construction now – right in the middle of the mix there. We threw in the indoor practice facility. That’s a lot of things that were happening really, really quickly, and the O’Connell Center was just happening too fast. Once we took a step and once we decided to postpone it for a year, it was almost like a depth breath. It’s really come together, in a way it probably should have right from the start. That’s not being too critical -- the schedule was too aggressive and the schedule was causing us problems.”
On the Office of Student Life…
“I think the building will have as big an impact on our recruiting and doing our job more than any facility we have around here. I just think the ability for parents and student athletes first of all to come and see our commitment to a total student. Not just academics also obviously, but career development, nutrition. There’s going to be a sports science area over there where we’re going to be able to study certain things such as concussions, the effect of nutrition on performance. They’re going to walk in there and people I think are going to be taken aback about, ‘Hey, this university really talks the right game when it comes to developing young men and young women.'”
On the O'Dome renovations...
“We’re working like heck to make the budget work on this current project, which we’re gonna make work. Last time we were on here, told you all how committed we were to the project and how I’ve been with Dr. Fuchs several times this summer talking about the project. We’re getting close to putting a bow on this thing and getting a schedule and getting this thing started here in the upcoming years. But tearing it down and starting from scratch, you’re talking over $100 million to get that done. And that’s just revenue and resources we don’t have at this point in time.
“But that being the case -- and I’ve told people and I’m going to say it again, will say it a lot here in the next few months – except from the roof and the side walls, this will be a brand new arena. We are literally gutting the inside. You walk inside and people won’t recognize the O’Connell Center. That’s the intent. It’ll take us into the 21st century as far as arenas are concerned.”
On why they were delayed a year...
“I think once we kind of took the step back, it’s been no different than any other project. A lot of work, a lot of details, a lot of different parties. It’s not an athletic association building – it’s a university building. A lot of different users, groups. I think the thing that probably caused the most heartache, if that’s the right word, is that we were on a fast track. We had an aggressive schedule. ‘We gotta start now, we gotta finish by now.’ And it just wasn’t working. You’ve also got the Office of Student Life project that was being designed – it’s under construction now – right in the middle of the mix there. We threw in the indoor practice facility. That’s a lot of things that were happening really, really quickly, and the O’Connell Center was just happening too fast. Once we took a step and once we decided to postpone it for a year, it was almost like a depth breath. It’s really come together, in a way it probably should have right from the start. That’s not being too critical -- the schedule was too aggressive and the schedule was causing us problems.”
On the Office of Student Life…
“I think the building will have as big an impact on our recruiting and doing our job more than any facility we have around here. I just think the ability for parents and student athletes first of all to come and see our commitment to a total student. Not just academics also obviously, but career development, nutrition. There’s going to be a sports science area over there where we’re going to be able to study certain things such as concussions, the effect of nutrition on performance. They’re going to walk in there and people I think are going to be taken aback about, ‘Hey, this university really talks the right game when it comes to developing young men and young women.'”
