Charlotte recently selected McMillan Pazdan Smith and SLAM to handle the design for Charlotte Football’s Jerry Richardson Stadium expansion project, a huge step forward in the process. Charlotte has now hosted a preproposal meeting for Construction Manager (CM) at Risk. I connected with fellow Niners that has some familiarity in large-scale projects. The CM will work with the University and design teams, which helps to better control costs, and ultimately work to stay at or within the Gross Maximum Price (GMP). This type of collaboration should help increase the overall speed of the project, and improve the coordination between architects/engineers and the CM. This arrangement is in place to also help offset issues earlier in the process before they become more significant ones.
What I’ve heard
Transparency here, information is still really limited around this project, but I want to share what I’ve heard.
It seems there is a sense of urgency to move quickly with design and the State Construction Office (SCO) review process, in an effort to potentially begin construction in January 2025, with an estimated completion in the Summer (June/July) 2026. This would ultimately impact 1 season of Charlotte Football, and I believe, 2 of Charlotte Women’s Lacrosse. It also sounds like the plans are to, if possible, continue playing on campus during the project, instead of relocating games.
Construction manager Selection Schedule
- RESPONSES POSTED: OCTOBER 23, 2023
- SUBMITTAL DUE: NOVEMBER 3, 2023 AT 2:00 PM
- COMMITTEE SHORTLISTS: EARLY NOVEMBER 2023
- CM INTERVIEWS: MID-NOVEMBER 2023
- FINAL SELECTION: LATE NOVEMBER 2023
CM being selected in late November 2023, and the Design firm already being selected, gives that group approximately 1 year to go through the design and approval process, if they are to start in January 2025.
Project Overview
The total authorization (to date) for this project is $56,000,000. Clearly this project will exceed this amount, especially if they go directly to 30,000 (approximately) seats. The preproposal meeting presentation did mention “increase seating from 15,300 between 21-30,000 < Effective Seating”, which to mean means we aren’t fully committed to going directly to 30k seats.
Increase premium seating and offerings is highlighted, including: clubs, loges, suites, flexible (space?), outdoor terraces, shading, concession options and WiFi. Another key component of the project will be maximizing the utility of the stadium/tower, a part of that 365-day functionality could include these (provided) options: training table, fan store, hall of fame, med partnership, meeting rooms, academic center, office space and rental space.
Clearly stated in the presentation was: “Goal Phase 1 complete for 2026 season”.
Imagery shared in presentation
You’ll notice the first 2 look almost identical, but if you look at the concourse opposite of the fieldhouse, the first image has more structures in place than the second. This could turn into premium seating areas? We’ll find out in time.
