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According to the BGSU Building Dreams site, contributions to the Sebo Center are progressing. Of the $7 million goal, just over $5 million has been pledged.

http://giving.bgsu.edu/development/buil ... ogress.jsp

Maybe we're closing in on what is needed for breaking ground.

Also, I think we're now over 3 months into the Convocation Center Study and it could be we'll hear something soon. I think that the Convocation Center is eligible for state funding so we wouldn't have to rely solely on private funding. Can anyone confirm this?

Salsa wrote:Also, I think we're now over 3 months into the Convocation Center Study and it could be we'll hear something soon. I think that the Convocation Center is eligible for state funding so we wouldn't have to rely solely on private funding. Can anyone confirm this?

No. But I can confirm that the state recently released $50,000 to BGSU to help pay for the study, which will cost about $150,000.*

Unfortunately, the state Controlling Board Web site is mostly Java, so I can't post direct links. But the convocation center feasibility study is the fourth item on the Sept. 26 Controlling Board agenda, which can be found here:

http://www.ecb.ohio.gov/Public/Default.aspx

Click on that item, and it will lead to a ton of mostly technical information about the study. For instance, if you click on "attachments" once on the main convocation center study record, you can dig out an 18-page .pdf file where HNTB Ohio Architecture (of Kansas City, Mo. ) lays out the scope of the study.

It appears that the $50,000 was first appropriated in the FY 2003-04 capital budget (page 8 in this document):

http://www.obm.ohio.gov/budget/capital/ ... -03-04.pdf

Generally speaking, I think it's safe to say that it's tough for universities to pry money out of Columbus for sports projects, especially these days, when money is tight.

But principles are violated all the time in Columbus. If enough people in the right places wanted a BGSU convocation center to receive state funding, it would get that funding.

If memory serves, Cleveland State's Convocation Center did receive substantial state funding. But that was 15 or 20 years ago, and my memory might be failing me on this.

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* I don't know where BGSU is getting it's local share (about $100,000) from. Did it come out of private fundraising? Tuition and/or fees? I don't know.

Schadenfreude wrote:If enough people in the right places wanted a BGSU convocation center to receive state funding, it would get that funding.

Mmmmm.....pork!

There is a comission in the state of Ohio called the Arts and Sports Facilities comission which allocates funds to different projects throughout the state... the list following all received funding up to 20% of the total cost of the facility.

PBS
Cleveland Brown Stadium
5/3 Stadiums (both)
Arnoff Center
Akron Aeros Stadium
Great American Ballpark

There are more, but these facilities are given money based on the premise that this will add value to the community by bringing in other events besides just the main tenant.

Sebo center wouldn't qualify, but a new Basketball arena might.

redskins4ever wrote:There is a comission in the state of Ohio called the Arts and Sports Facilities comission which allocates funds to different projects throughout the state... the list following all received funding up to 20% of the total cost of the facility.

It is now the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission. They have a Web site:

www.culture.ohio.gov

Thing is, the commission doesn't allocate funds. As it readily acknowledges on its Web site, funding comes down to what the General Assembly and the governor want to pay for.

Making that happen comes down to lobbying the legislature and the governor to put the item in the state's two-year capital budget.

Also: The commission has only spent money on publicly-owned professional sports facilities. Unless there is a notion of trying to lure the Toledo Storm down to Bowling Green, the money probably isn't going to come through the commission*. It would probably come through the higher education portion of the capital budget, which is where the BGSU convocation center study got its $50,000.

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* Although, again, the General Assembly and the governor could stick a college sports arena into the commission budget if they wanted to do it that way. It's up to them.

I checked, and it does appear as if Cleveland State's Convocation Center did get a substantial amount of funding from Columbus.

I think Value City Arena got at least $15 million (nowhere near most of the cost, I don't think).

A couple of old articles follow.


Paper: Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
Title: TRUSTEES APPROVE CSU REORGANIZATION
Date: October 5, 1991

Cleveland State University trustees yesterday officially recognized a dramatic reorganization of the administration that gives day-to-day operating responsibility to Provost J. Taylor Sims and frees John A. Flower to carry out specific objectives in his last year as president.

The structure, which has been in effect for about two weeks, is based on corporate models, Flower and Sims said. It makes the president the chief executive officer and the provost the chief operating officer.

Flower said he requested the arrangement. His objectives include implementing a new core curriculum, increasing or improving classroom space, cutting bureaucracy, implementing a new long-range strategic development plan and leading a campaign to build an education endowment.

He has said he wants to step down as president no later than the end of 1992.

At a special early-morning meeting, the board of trustees also decided to name parts of the new $55 million CSU Convocation Center after two of its own members plus a state legislator. The center itself has yet to be named.

The center's 13,000-seat arena will be known as the Henry J. Goodman Center, after the trustees board chairman. The adjacent meeting rooms and gymnasium will be the Gerald H. Gordon Conference Pavilion, in honor of the trustee. And the atrium connecting the two was named for State Rep. Patrick A. Sweeney, D-9, of Cleveland.

Gordon is chairman of the board's buildings and grounds and finance committees. Sweeney, chairman of the House Finance Committee, was instrumental in obtaining financing for the project.

University spokesman Edward Mayer said it was common for CSU to name facilities for living people. He offered as examples the James A. Rhodes Tower, Maxine Goodman Levine School of Urban Studies, John and Elizabeth Drinko Recital Hall, Walter B. Waetjen Auditorium, Alvin Krenzler Field, Joseph E. Cole Center for Continuing Education, Joseph J. Bartunek Law Library and James J. Nance School of Business.

Also yesterday, the trustees "reaffirmed" their commitment to operate the new convocation center using unionized employees hired under affirmative-action guidelines.

The convocation center, which is to open in November, has been at the center of a controversy. Issues have included whether to run the center as a separate, non-profit corporation and whether to allow outside vendors to work as subcontractors. Allegations also have been made that center managers were being hired outside affirmative-action guidelines.

Flower and the trustees referred questions to lawyer Craig M. Brown of the firm Duvin Cahn & Barnard.

And Brown, who spoke as the trustees sat silent after a 90-minute closed session, said, "The board this morning has reaffirmed ... its commitment (to) policies that are part and parcel of this university, established by the board, and consistently followed across the board with respect to the convocation center.

"Specifically, with respect to employment matters," he continued, "we have a strong policy preference to use CSU employees at the convocation center. We are committed to our affirmative-action policies. We think that there should be clarification and clear understanding on that."

Brown's partner Robert Duvin had said that the university may have been considering subcontracting work, but it had not made a decision.

Duvin also had warned that the university would continue to go to outside labor if a cost analysis proved it was more economical.

A preliminary estimate of operating costs totaled about $1 million per year.

Duvin said he believed the cost analysis would be completed by university financial planners in the next several days. But Flower, when asked after the meeting when the results would be ready, said, "We'll have to live with it awhile."

Flower also told trustees that the administration plans to use some of the conference rooms in the new building for classes - a move that would allow the university to seek operating funds from the Ohio Board of Regents.



Paper: Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
Title: OSU'S PRICEY TABLE IRKS STATE SENATOR
Date: June 18, 1996

The State Controlling Board yesterday gave about $6.3 million to Ohio State University for a variety of projects, but it was the remodeling of a conference room - including a $6,500 table - that angered one state senator.

The biggest chunk of money was $2.8 million earmarked for the Schottenstein Center, a new sports arena on campus. That money, to be used in the first phase of construction, is part of $15 million the state pledged to help build the arena.

Other Ohio State projects approved by the legislative panel included the renovation of classroom buildings at the school's main campus in Columbus and at the Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster.

But it was the $60,000 conference room renovation at the school's Mansfield campus that upset Sen. Alan Zaleski, a Vermilion Democrat.

The price tag included about $20,000 for a conference table and several chairs.

The cherry wood table was about $6,500 and the chairs were priced at $500 apiece. According to school officials, they were the lowest prices they could find.

"I've sure never heard of a table selling for $6,000," Zaleski said. "If this was AT&T buying it, then fine ... but this is taxpayer money."

Zaleski and Rep. Ross A. Boggs Jr., an Ashtabula County Democrat, were the only members of the Controlling Board who voted against funding the Mansfield project.

The board is made up of six legislators and a president who represents Gov. George Voinovich.

The panel also approved spending $60 million for the state's SchoolNet program, which provides classroom computers and Internet access to schools across Ohio.

SchoolNet is designed to provide a computer work station for every five students in kindergarten through fourth grade.

About 25 percent of the state's 100,000 classrooms have been wired for SchoolNet since the project began in the summer of 1994. About half of the 660 school and joint vocational districts eligible have applied for the money.

Man, an unindicted Tom Noe could have come in handy...