On April 28, the University Estates HOA had a representative attend a UCF Community Council meeting to inform community members about new facilities at UCF. While the primary purpose was about new sports facilities, the program began with a discussion about the new Arts and Entertainment area.

You may have noticed the large building complex on the Northwest side of the campus. This is the first major building that is part of the new Arts complex. This will mainly be a student oriented education complex for students in the theater, arts and music disciplines. This project should be completed by August. After that, there will be a series of other buildings to serve as performance arenas for the UCF music and theater programs. There may be some outside entertainment, but the stages are mainly for UCF productions. There is no current timeline for the theater portion of the complex because it is dependent on funding – both public and private. However, there will likely be at least two theater stages and two concert venues when all the building is complete.

After the Arts presentation, the group heard directly from the UCF men’s baseball coach. Coach Terry Rooney is in his second year at UCF as head coach. He provided a brief overview of what UCF baseball is all about. He indicated he wanted his players to be good students, good UCF representatives, and good players. When he recruits prospects for his team, he talks all of these points. UCF baseball players have very good GPAs – both from a UCF and a national perspective. Coach Rooney has his players participate in camps for Little League ball players throughout the UCF off-season. This allows his players to serve as role models for the young players. He also uses this as advertisement for his program, since he plans to recruit primarily from the greater Orlando area. As players, his team made a major step up upon joining Conference USA. With only one full year of recruiting under his belt his team has made major strides. From an attendance perspective, the team’s stadium holds 800 seats and there have been as many as 3000 people attending games.

The main presentation dealt with the future athletic venues for the campus. There are several near-term projects that are interesting for the greater UCF community.

  1. The Academic Athletic Center will relocate to the Northeast UCF quadrant so that more athletes will have more access to counselors and other academic support.
  2. The Baseball stadium needs to expand from its current 800 seat maximum to 4000 seats. They will do this first by putting new seats farther down the foul lines and then by building more seats behind home plate, including some boxes like you see at the football and basketball venues. This will require moving the current press box farther back.
  3. The Tennis facility will expand to 12 outdoor courts and space for indoor training and courts.
  4. The Wayne Densch facility on the North side of the campus (near the football stadium) will expand to allow more indoor practice and workout area.
  5. The Track and Soccer area will have a clubhouse and seats for 1500 spectators.
  6. Bright House Networks Stadium will eventually expand its suites and club seats on the west side and have another level of regular seats on the east side.

Source: This is part of a series of short articles for the University Estates Home Owners Association, written by Dean Haylett. In these articles, Dean provides information to residents of local activities of potential interest. He is working with the UCF administration to provide information on education, entertainment, sports, and other community activities.