The New Concept Masterplan and How Charlotte is Growing

The long-waited Masterplan is out with BIG new on how Charlotte Athletics is growing!

Yesterday, news of the new "Concept Masterplan" was released for Charlotte Athletics. Jacob Baum reported it with a link to the spreadsheet listing the different projects the athletic department wants to achieve in the future. The timelines for the projects are unknown at this time, but we can expect these projects to be worked on for the next 15 years. The constitution cost for the projects was listed at well. 

The biggest highlight of the list is the expansion of Jerry Richardson Stadium. This project would add an additional 30,000 seats to the stadium, over two phases. Along with the project comes the $93,447609 price tag for the expansion. 

Different concepts have been created for what the expansion might look like, but no renderings have been made official. 

The Judy W. Rose football center will see renovations done to the locker room, coaches offices, and official’s locker room. The program area will be repurposed as well. 

A $22.5 million indoor training facility is also listed for the future, but it would probably be done after the stadium expansion. 

One point to note is all the money required to build these facilities doesn't come from tuition money, but rather donations and fundraising (by UNC system law). 

The 49ers have some big-name opponents coming to town and I would expect the stadium expansion to be one of the first items on the list to be worked on. If I had to guess when this would begin, I would at least one phase to be complete by 2024 (East Caroline home game) or 2025 (Carolina home game). The home and home series with Ole Miss and App State (four games total) will require higher attendance accommodations, so I would predict the expansion to be done definitely by those seasons. 

Halton arena will also see some major improvements in the future as well. These include north and south sideline work and work on the west side entrance and ticket office. With the rise of Coach Ron Sanchez and the winning teams he will bring to Charlotte, this will be a great time for these much-needed improvements to be done. 

NOW, the biggest question with the concept master plan is: why do this now? It is obvious that UNC Charlotte as a school has grown significantly in the past two decades and has now entered a new era with a new chancellor and athletic director. Whenever Mike Hill took the job as athletic director, he came from Florida after 17 years of working in a huge SEC program and said he saw UNC Charlotte as an SEC style campus. We definitely have the student population and the alumni base in the Carolinas, but our facilities and sports leadership were not up to par, even with C-USA (when Hill took the gob in 2018). These number of improvements to basketball, football, soccer, softball, baseball, tennis, track and field, and the creation of a field hockey team leads me to believe that Charlotte is making the improvements to move to another conference within this time period. In the two years Mike Hill as been here, we have seen significant changes in our sporting programs making us a major contender in C-USA.

I will be making a post in the next few weeks arguing why Charlotte will move to another conference within the decade, but it looks like we are making the financial move to improve our facilities to accommodate a larger conference. 

This is an exciting time for Niner Nation, and Mike Hill is delivering on his promises to grow the program into a winning program as a whole. More information and timelines will be coming out about what these facilities will look like and when they will be finished. Just remember that this is a time to get really excited because Charlotte is starting to wake up to be a major player in the Carolinas and one day, the nation. 

#Roll Niners

The Listed Athletics Masterplan