Florida Atlantic Owls Football - Push For A New Stadium

Push For A New Stadium

Since football's inception at FAU in 1998, Coach Schnellenberger has publicly led a campaign to build a football stadium on FAU's main campus in Boca Raton. In seven seasons of competition, the FAU Owls have called two stadiums "home" (Dolphin Stadium located in Miami Gardens and Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, neither of which are in the same county as Boca Raton). Coach Schnellenberger argued that an on-campus stadium increases popularity of the program and attracts high-caliber recruits.

In 2006, the Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees (FAU BoT) approved the idea of moving forward with plans to build a football stadium on Boca's campus. HKS/Schenkel Shultz are currently designing an open-air, 30,000-seat football stadium (that can eventually be expanded to 100,000 seats) and are due to report back to the FAU BoT on Sept.17th, 2007 to report projected costs and a timetable to break ground on the project.

The stadium is just a part of the university's broader concept of an "Innovation Village", covering the north end of Boca's campus. The Village will include the football stadium, a multi-use Convocation Center for volleyball, basketball and recreation, two parking garages, student housing complexes, an Alumni Center, a wellness and fitness center and strip shopping centers. The Innovation Village will be funded and constructed in stages, with the football stadium being the main concern of the first phase. All relative information on the Innovation Village can be found at FAU's Campus Master Plan (2006–2013).