Gators AD Stricklin Shares 'Few Hundred Million Dollars' Swamp Upgrade Plan

Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin shared ambitious renovation plans for Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Monday afternoon.

Photo: Scott Stricklin; Credit: Alex Shepherd

A "few hundred million dollars" in upgrades are coming to the home of Florida football soon.

In October 2021, Florida announced plans to upgrade Ben Hill Griffin Stadium prior to the 2024 season. As we enter the 2023 offseason, blueprints for those renovations are growing closer to finalization.

On Tuesday, the University of Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin shed some light on the new touches to The Swamp via Sportscene with Steve Russell on Monday afternoon.

"That is going to be by far the most ambitious facility project not only the University of Florida has ever done from an athletic standpoint, but it might be the biggest in SEC history, maybe even as big as any nationally," he said. "It’s going to be, my guess is to fully renovate the Swamp you’re looking at a few hundred million dollars.

"That takes a lot of planning and a lot of careful thought."

Working through two separate studies — including an initial overview of the renovation process before recently finishing a honed-in version of the plans — the University of Florida Athletic Association is moving diligently. Stricklin said he views where they are in the process as perfect timing with President Ben Sasse on campus to get involved in the conversation before they begin a hefty fundraising process.

Some of the potential fixes will include repurposing current space in the stadium.

"We have a large weight room in the south endzone of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Ideally, we would repurpose that space for stadium usage."

That, however, would force UF to find space to build a new weight room to house the Olympic sports teams on campus.

"We obviously have the new weight room in the new Heavener Football Center. There's a weight room in the basketball practice facility. Right now, a lot of our Olympic sports are using the weight room in Ben Hill Griffin. We would need an Olympic sport weight room."

On top of that, Stricklin shared that they will also look to repurpose a portion of the 180,000 square feet of office space currently used by the UAA and the university, respectively, for gameday usage. Once again, that involves finding new spots for those housed in that area now.

"There's a lot of tethers to that as you start looking at a facility that is that large, that comprehensive and has the age on it that it does. There's a lot of moving parts," he said.

To begin the revamping efforts, Stricklin hopes they can get the ball rolling with video boards, lights or audio improvements inside the stadium. However, the plan is more comprehensive than the basic adjustments that would increase its life span by 10-to-15 years. It's a generational fix, in Stricklin's eyes, to maintain The Swamp's illustrious history for the foreseeable future.

"It's not going to be a new coat of paint and a couple new videoboards. It's going to be all of that plus significant structural renovations. Really, what you want to do is make sure Ben Hill Griffin Stadium extends its useful life for several generations. Not a 10-to-15-year fix but a 75-year fix.

"We have a pretty comprehensive long-term vision. And we want it to be the iconic football stadium that everybody thinks of that's better than ever and is going to be around for a long, long time."

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