Tallahassee and Leon County Commissioners should move quickly to approve FAMU President Larry Robinson’s urgent request for $10 million in funding to make critical repairs and upgrades to FAMU’s 67-year-old Bragg Memorial Stadium. Robinson made the request last week before commissioners sitting as the Board of the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency, which administers funds from a voter approved one cent optional sales tax to fund transportation, infrastructure and other community needs.
As Robinson, aptly noted, Bragg Stadium is not only a FAMU asset, but a community asset and should be viewed as such.
FAMU’s request is not without precedent. In September 2018, Blueprint approved a $20 million request by Florida State University for a convention center to connect to the FSU Turnbull Center and the FSU owned Civic Center. Those funds were scheduled to be released this year. However, by March (2020) Blueprint learned that the price tag for the convention center project had more than doubled to $53 million.
FSU was already in line for a $66 million taxpayer-funded access road near the university's southern border, along Lake Bradford Rd, that would tie the campus with the Tallahassee International Airport and the FSU SW Campus at Innovation Park.
Blueprint will pay $63 million of the road cost, with FSU chipping in only $3 million.
The new road plan has angered many Southside residents who fear that their neighborhood would be decimated.
It is not lost on any of us, that the Blueprint funded $32 million FAMU Way, which FAMU initially opposed, was a Seminole Booster backed thoroughfare, whose sole purpose is to move traffic out of FSU's Doak Campbell Stadium after football games faster, after the City reduced Gaines Street from four lanes to two and diverted stadium traffic to Orange Ave and Capitol Circle SW via Lake Bradford Rd forcing longer commute times for game fans who live north of town.
FAMU’s request is entirely consistent with Blueprint funds intended use for economic development and would further enhance Tallahassee and Leon County’s product availability and tourism marketing, by adding another quality venue (Bragg Stadium) which in addition to hosting Rattler home football games, could be an attractive venue for soccer games, and state football championship games not needing a large stadium.
FAMU's request is reasonable, and relatively cheap considering the number of FSU funded request Blueprint has rushed to fund.
FAMU's request is reasonable, and relatively cheap considering the number of FSU funded request Blueprint has rushed to fund.
As Commissioners heard Thursday, the urgency to do this real. There is a time clock. The possibility of not having a home football season in 2021 is real.
Commissioners, and Blueprint, should move with haste to approve FAMU's request at its next meeting.