Missouri curators approve of South End Zone Project architect, will make big project vote in June

As was expected, the Curators approved Missouri’s selection of architect for the South End Zone project. They approved the design cost ($4.3 million), but the big step will come in June, when they vote on the cost of the entire project.

Rather than vote on full approval for the project, set to cost an estimated $96.7 million, curators asked to split the approval process into two votes. Thursday’s vote also authorized design costs of $4.31 million, which already have been raised by the athletics department through private donations.

Curators will vote again in June to approve the total project. Mizzou athletics has raised nearly $44 million in donations for the facility, Sterk said. MU has planned to cover the balance of the costs through revenue bonds financed through the university.

The June approval “doesn’t slow the momentum,” Sterk said after Thursday’s vote. “It doesn’t slow the timing of the process. … It gives us time to improve the financing plan we put in front of the curators.”

From the KC Star:

“[Jim] Sterk — who has helped secure a fiscal-year record eight seven-figure donations, many earmarked specifically for the football facility project — said in December that demolition could begin before the 2017 season in hopes the project will be complete for the 2019 season.”

More Links

• So ESPN Radio’s Ryan Russillo was on Richard Deitsch’s media podcast this week and talked about the impossibility of actually having a debate in the current sports/political climate. He used the 2015 Missouri protests as an example of what he was trying to say. That part of the conversation begins around the 10:45 mark and is pretty interesting.
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• This Weekend in Olympic Sports: Gymnastics (now No. 13) hosts No. 14 GW, No. 25 Iowa State, and Lindenwood, Track & Field competes in Ames and Fayetteville, and Tennis takes on Kansas State, Wichita State, and UMKC.
• MIZ-MAYER