Fort Worth ISD should keep two specific goals in mind for new football stadium
With Fort Worth Independent School District announcing long-term plans to build a new sports complex to accommodate football, as a taxpayer, the single biggest priority is that this new toy not be a waste of your money.
Build something practical.
“I would think between 2,000 and 5,500 [seats],” FWISD athletic director Todd Veseley said this week in an interview along with FWISD superintendent Dr. Kent Scribner at the main administration building.
“There is a big jump financially when you go from 7,000 to 5,500. You become much more financially efficient at 5,500 seats. Once you go up, the number of restrooms and plumbing becomes expensive. Then there is the amount of space and acreage you have to have for parking.”
Whatever the explanation, go with financially efficient.
With FWISD announcing intentions to sell many of its real estate holdings, including Farrington Field, which should result in tens of millions of dollars, this is its chance to create a new standard for the future of high school athletic facilities. And get ahead of the constant money shortfalls it faces seemingly every day.
Just because this is a high school facility does not mean it should ignore the biggest priority in new stadium construction these days, which is to be open for business 500 days out of the year.
The Texas Rangers and Arlington built a new baseball stadium smaller than the existing version, with the idea that it will be open for events well beyond 81 home baseball games a year. That’s the reason there is synthetic surface, not because they can’t grow real grass.
FWISD’s new facility needs to function as more than a place for a football game between South Hills and Southwest. It needs to have the potential to make at least some money.
Preferably millions, but hope for thousands. It needs to generate some money to throw into the pot to help counter the continued budget problems the district faces.
Build something that will allow for the sale, or extended lease, of naming rights. Once schools allowed the sale of soda in its halls, which is a revenue producer, it opened the door to this sort of scenario.
Doesn’t mean I like it, but this is also 2019.
“We are open to anything, and that sounds very appealing, quite frankly,” Scribner said. “Moving forward, I am convinced school districts are going to have to do a better job of not only having to be more efficient, but generating revenue to support programming.”
If you live in Fort Worth and pay property taxes, scroll down at your 2019 bill. Now allow yourself three to five minutes to throw something, possibly a tantrum.
After you have cleaned up the mess you made while reading this annual bill, you will see “FT Worth ISD” listed at the bottom of the six itemized expenses that you help cover every year. You will notice that FWISD is the largest portion of said bill.
That’s not going to change, and everything the district does will require more money, and more resources, as the city continues to grow.
Potential to generate some income, albeit not much, would be for the district to permit the sale of alcohol for non-FWISD events. Currently, the district does not permit alcohol sales of any kinds on its property, most notably for Texas Wesleyan home football games.
With Tarleton State going Division I in athletics, and having expressed an interest in playing a home football game in Fort Worth, there is the potential for more opportunity for the district to make a little bit more cash.
“It’s weekend events and concerts; I know stadiums are built with a fine arts component to them. So it’s also a concert venue,” Scribner. “You’d have to navigate the alcohol component. That would be a board and community decision.”
There is precedent for such allowances.
Veseley cited Odessa and Ratliff Stadium, home to Permian and Odessa High.
He said the University of Texas-Permian Basin, in Odessa, is “allowed to do beer sales in the parking long, and they allow some distribution among boosters and donors from inside the stadium for its football games.”
How this new project in Fort Worth ultimately looks, and specifically what it includes, is in the drawing and debate stage. And, like any good public works project, it won’t be done any time soon.
Farrington Field is an architectural treasure and a fun reminder of this city’s history. It would be nice if the planners can retain the exterior, but that can’t be the priority.
The priority is to build a facility that is efficient, will last and is a waste of neither space nor our money.
