COLUMBIA, Mo. — University of Missouri leadership will trek to Rolla on Thursday for the expected approval and unveiling of renderings for Memorial Stadium’s north concourse renovations.
The UM System Board of Curators will take up the project during its regularly scheduled April meeting, which will take place on the Missouri S&T campus.
Expected to be part of the process are details regarding the financing of the project, which university leaders now expect to cost $250 million. Assuming the Curators vote to approve the renovations, the Mizzou athletics department will present renderings at a press conference following the meeting.
Thursday’s gathering has long been the target date for MU athletics to get stadium upgrade approval. When the department first floated Memorial Stadium redevelopment in November, it said it planned to present scope, budget and fundraising in April.
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The planning process has continued relatively unhindered by the sudden departure of athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois and the ongoing search for her replacement.
Financing for the project will be of particular interest during the meeting, given that the $250 million price tag for the north concourse project is substantially more than the $98 million cost of building Memorial Stadium’s south end zone seating and team facility.
Of that $250 million, half is expected to come from fundraising, according to meeting documents — including a $50 million contribution from an anonymous donor earlier this year. Another $50 million will come from unspecified internal sources, and $75 million will come from debt, a standard practice that means MU will rely on future revenue generated by the project to pay it off.
A handful of athletics department personnel tied to the project, including football coach Eli Drinkwitz and interim athletics director Marcy Girton, are scheduled to attend the meeting.
The athletics department and board have targeted added premium seating, concessions, retail space, a recruiting room and multiple open-air observation decks for the new north concourse. Design priorities have emphasized “transparent and strengthened engagement between Memorial Stadium and (the) MU campus†along with the “preservation and memorialization†of the Rock M, according to previous meeting documents.
The project is expected to be complete ahead of the 2026 football season. A separate expansion of the north concourse’s scoreboard and upgraded sound system are already in the works for the upcoming 2024 season.
While financing — as well as broader administration oversight and the athletics director search — may well guide questions heading into Thursday’s meeting, the unveiling of renderings is more likely to capture fans’ attention. Fake images have circulated on social media since the beginning of stadium renovation talks while the university and its hired design firm have kept authentic renderings under close wraps.
The Board of Curators previously approved a $400,000 deal with the Kansas City-based DLR Group for architectural services. Representatives from the firm are also slated to attend Thursday’s meeting.
Leadership will gather in Rolla and not in Columbia because of the typical rotation of Board of Curators meetings between the four UM System campuses.
Thursday’s meeting is part of a busy week for one sub-set of MU athletics administration: the Board of Curators’ Mizzou athletics oversight committee.
That four-person panel met independent of the rest of the board Tuesday morning and will do so again Friday. As with its other meetings, the Mizzou Intercollegiate Athletics Special Committee has moved directly into executive session.
To legally close the meetings to the public, the committee has cited state statutes that allow governmental bodies to meet privately for discussion of sealed bids, personnel records and communication with legal counsel.
While the topics of those meetings are not clear, a potential request from Reed-Francois to lower or eliminate her contract buyout, the athletics director search and stadium renovations are all possible matters of interest to the oversight committee.
The Board of Curators’ Thursday meeting begins at 9 a.m. Discussion of the Memorial Stadium project is likely to come up before noon.