photo by: John English/Journal-World

Work on the University of Kansas' football stadium is shown in this September 2024 photo.

Future development around KU’s football stadium — currently undergoing a partial $450 million renovation to add a conference center and other amenities — has recently become more complicated.

Soon, local governments may be asked to ease some of those complications by providing financial incentives to the project at 11th and Mississippi streets.

“It is going to take the whole community to get this done,” KU Chancellor Douglas Girod told the Journal-World in a brief interview.

As a reminder, the development has been billed as KU’s Gateway Project. KU hopes to build around the stadium a hotel, restaurants and retail that will bring convention-goers and others to Lawrence to spend their money even when KU football isn’t playing a game.

The project is underway in a big way currently. The west side of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium was demolished, and is currently being rebuilt while KU plays its home football games in Kansas City. A conference center that will host events up to 1,000 people in size is being built in the northern end of the stadium.

What’s not happening, though, are any improvements to the east side of the stadium. The $448 million project is essentially just renovating half of the stadium, plus building the conference center.

Instead, KU had largely put the east renovation on pause, saying it had no timeline for completing that renovation, and acknowledged it didn’t have enough donor money or other funds to begin the project.

Rather, the next phase of the project has been focused on finding a private partner to build a hotel on the east side of the stadium to connect to the conference center. KU and other industry officials have said a hotel is critical to the success of the under-construction conference center.

Here’s where the new complication emerges: Developers have told KU that it is infeasible to build a hotel or anything else on the east side of the stadium until KU actually completes the stadium renovations on the east side.

“That is what we learned going through the process with developers,” Girod said. “I did not appreciate that until fairly recently. We can’t wait on the stadium because none of it can happen.”

The reason the renovation must happen first comes down to space. Renovation of the east side of the stadium will involve moving the grandstands 80 to 100 feet to the west, said Jeff DeWitt, KU’s chief financial officer, who also has been involved in the discussions. That extra 80 to 100 feet of space is what makes it feasible to build a hotel, retail, restaurants, parking and other amenities on the east side.

DeWitt said that was surprising news to KU officials.

“It didn’t enter my mind until the developer saw it,” DeWitt said.

Girod said the revelation has been pivotal.

“They said ‘you don’t understand. You can’t wait on (renovations) because none of this will happen,'” Girod said of recent conversations with an unnamed development group that KU is considering as a potential partner.

What comes next will be highly consequential as well. While KU has learned what it needs to do to have enough space to build the project, it is still working on what it needs to do to have enough money to build it.

No cost estimates have been announced for the east-side stadium renovations. Conceivably, it will be less than the $450 million on the west side because the west-side project includes the press box, luxury suites and the conference center. By the time you add a hotel, restaurants, retail and parking garages to the project, the east-side projects could be at or above the $450 million mark. KU is counting on a private development group — which it has not yet selected — to contribute heavily to the nonstadium portions of the project.

How much developers are actually willing to contribute to the project is unknown, and even then the question remains of how KU will come up with the funds to cover the stadium-specific costs. The west-side project is slated to be covered by a mix of gifts from donors and new debt that Kansas Athletics Inc. will add to its books. KU hasn’t yet said how much debt the athletics department will have to take on, but Girod previously has acknowledged it could be more than $100 million.

That’s why Girod said it’s likely that KU will seek financial assistance from local governments like the city of Lawrence and Douglas County, though he did not provide any details about what KU may seek.

“My suspicion is we are going to need some incentive work with the city and the county to figure that (financial) piece out,” Girod said. “We need to understand that better.”

Girod said a key point of figuring out the overall finances of the east-side project is related to whether the project should include a student housing component. Girod said university officials are leaning toward the idea that the Gateway Project should include a new building for student housing. That building likely would be a revenue generator for the project, producing millions of dollars in student housing fees.

Exactly how large and what type of student housing component should be included is what KU officials are now studying. DeWitt said he thinks KU housing officials will have answers to those questions by the end of the year.

However, there also are major parking questions to answer. The east side of the stadium currently houses the two largest lots for gameday parking. Some sort of parking garage is expected to play a role in replacing that lost parking. But where and how much are key details that still must be determined.

Additionally, KU must finalize an agreement with a private developer. Girod acknowledged KU has one proposal from a developer that it is “pretty excited about,” but the university has not entered into a contract with the unnamed company.

DeWitt said that spring is likely the earliest KU would announce next steps on the project, including ideas on financing and timing.

Girod said much work has to be done between now and then. With the news that the stadium renovations must proceed before other work can begin, he said there are multiple elements KU is actively working on: a hotel, retail, student housing, parking and the east-side stadium improvements.

“Really, it now has five elements to it, which adds significant complexity to it, but it is the right way to do it,” Girod said.