At least they have a new football field
I’m sure this is a great move that will further ensure the success rate of all its students and won’t hamper any of their education, whatsoever. This school is most definitely on the rebound and certainly has its students’ best interests in mind!!!
Well this is a crazy development. Seems like a lot of money to lease land. Does this mean MLB to Saint Augustine’s? Could they even build a stadium there? (And oakwood and Mordecai howled!). Maybe I am overreading the fact that they are a stadium (and other stuff) developer. Land-lease deal could help struggling Saint Augustine's University, new audit reveals :: WRAL.com
Hah, they’d never build a pro stadium there - there’s no easy access to the highways from St. A’s. Might turn that stadium with the fancy new turf into a multi-use kind of thing for smaller crowds though (Maybe we could get NCFC or the Courage?)
Would they pay $70,000,000 to lease land for an NC Courage stadium?
Here is Truist park (Braves MLB) and the north end of St. Augs set to the same scale setting in Google maps.
They do multi-use developments too. That’s a phenomenal neighborhood for one of those.
I’m not sure they actually develop anything. Googled around and the whole operation seemed pretty sketchy. They bid on stuff sure but I didn’t see anything completed
Smart move on SAU’s part. The value of their land must have skyrocketed in the past decade or two, may as well make use of it.
We’ll have to wait and see how good the deal is; per the article, it’s not yet public exactly which land or how much land they’ve agreed to lease out. The land lease is (so far) $70M for a 99 year lease, which works out to ~$700k/year. If it’s enough land to build a stadium plus some mixed-use stuff in that location, it might seem like a steal.
I’d be pretty surprised if the developer plans to actually build a stadium here. On their website, under projects, they only have listed “future” projects, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they only went in for this since it’s a good deal and they plan to sell the lease to some other developer in the next few years.
Yup…S P E C U L A T I V E…sharks in the water…
I am sure the terms of the Gothic Ventures loan prevents any sort of ‘deal’ that encumbers the collateral without Gothic’s explicit approval.
Well, I was looking them up and found this in the google search results. It looks like they’ve at least presented/bid for the TB Rays before…
So, speculative, but 50 Plus 1 has at least got the Rays in their sights.
Interesting… It is ironic that the Tampa Bay Rays are rumored to possibly be relocating… and that Raleigh may be a potential new home for the team… Am I reading too much into this?? 
I’m gonna be the realist and say yeah… you’re probably reading too much into this 
but I love the optimism!!
16 posts were merged into an existing topic: Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions
I sat through a whole morning on the looming enrollment crisis, and heard how badly they need faculty (me) to help with recruitment. NC has a huge number of small, independent schools, and with a growing population, so many will be ok. But there will be closures, and outside of NC, it could be a real bloodbath in a number of states.
Higher Ed is running up against both a demographic decline in the number of HS graduates, and an increasing number that are going into skill trades rather than traditional college. I never thought everyone should go to college, but so many schools leveraged themselves to the hilt for various improvements that they can’t withstand a decline enrollments. Student amenities has been an arms race for most of this century, and the result is in debt colleges, charging high tuition so students can enjoy hot tubs, climbing walls and private baths. It is a lifestyle that many of them won’t be able to achieve in the working world for a decade or more. and don’t even get me started on the cost of athletic programs…
This is a problem of academia’s own creation, and the chickens are gonna come home to roost.
could some of those potentially troubled schools adopt programs and change facilities to accommodate the demographic change and also tailor new curriculums to accommodate workforce change? a tech school liberal arts combo so to speak with various types and length of degrees?
It’s pretty astonishing what many university students have at their finger tips today that wasn’t available when I was in college. I can only compare my experience at State to what is there today, and while I totally understand that the tools of learning change over time, and that those changes certainly demand different investments, it is pretty astonishing to me what is afforded today along the lines of what @pBeez was outlining that isn’t particularly in support of learning. If universities offered those amenities a la carte, then tuition could be more affordable for those who don’t want to use the “hot tub & climbing wall”, and that affordability could possibly boost enrollment.