Few dispute the Jaguars' need for a renovated stadium, but getting it done requires the team hierarchy and city officials to be transparent in the process.
Lamping — the Jaguars’ president and point person on all big franchise projects since owner Shad Khan bought the team in Dec. 2011 — is chomping at the bit to put the most ambitious and costly project to a city-owned building on public display.
“This process [before negotiations] is very close to its conclusion,” Lamping told the Times-Union in a 90-minute interview. “This stadium has reached the end of its useful life. We believe that we can do a renovation in a way that it delivers almost all the benefits of a new stadium, but at a significantly lower cost.
Among the amenities are concourses almost four times wider than at TIAA Bank Field, a stadium designed to take advantage of outside winds and bring a breeze into the seating bowl, as well as filtering out 70 percent of the sunlight to increase fan comfort. The swimming pools aren’t going away. There can be no top-secret, wink-wink negotiating behind closed doors. The Jaguars are painfully aware of how bad the failed Lot J deal made them look, along with Curry, because an attempt at a hurry-up offense between them backfired.
“If you don’t talk to people about it in the open, you’re asking for trouble. Trust is the most important asset that business people and politicians can have. If you do anything that begins to lose that asset, you’re done.” “If the Jaguars were to leave, it’d be the gut punch of all gut punches to the city of Jacksonville,” said Carlucci. “We have to find a way to make [a stadium deal] happen.”Jacksonville mayor Lenny Curry threw a curve ball into the impending negotiations this week by doing interviews with two Jacksonville radio stations, 1010XL and WOKV, and discussing hypothetical outcomes to a stadium deal.
Let’s just say the Jaguars and Lamping — who had discussions with UNF president Moez Limayem that one university insider described as more cursory than substantial — weren’t doing cartwheels over Curry engaging in speculation of what amounts to a potential outcome, not a guaranteed one. So who would pay for that expense? In that scenario, it’s more apt to fall on the city than the Jaguars.
But there’s a caveat to that, too. It would mean a start-stop construction process that Lamping says would also increase the stadium deal by over $100 million. It’s another reminder this stadium issue is an onion with a lot of layers.
Curry jumped the gun by going for what amounted to little more than an attention grab. The fallout and impact on future negotiations were not well received by those intimately connected to those discussions. “There are a lot of complicated issues that go into these negotiations. No mayor is going to negotiate this [stadium deal] by themself. This discussion has got to be out in the open and it must involve the community.”
In 2002, the Chicago Bears played 140 miles away at the University of Illinois while Soldier Field was rebuilt. The Carolina Panthers also traveled 140 miles for home games at Clemson during their inaugural 1995 season. Khan, who also owns Fulham FC in the English Premier League, wants to attract more international soccer matches with USA teams. A renovated stadium will surely put Jacksonville in position to lure bigger concerts with A-list musical artists.
“Taxpayers have to see more than what’s being done to improve the stadium,” said Carlucci. “How is this going to help us do other things in the stadium besides Jaguars football games? The stadium has tentacles that go throughout the community in different ways.” "It has benefitted the Jaguars in terms of revenue and building our brand, and it's benefitted the city through job growth and global awareness of Jacksonville," said Lamping."London has become part of the Jaguars' DNA. It isn't 100 percent in our control. It's also what the league wants to do."
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