This past Thursday, the UCF athletic department officially unveiled the new Roth Tower to the media. This new tower replaces the original Roth Tower as UCF prepares to open their 20th season at the Acrisure Bounce House.
How did the new Roth Tower become a reality?
Roth Tower 2.0 is a new $90 million dollar facility to redefines the aesthetics at the Acrisure Bounce House. UCF has long wanted to expand the tower, but funding for such a capital project was hard to find. One of the primary reasons Terry Mohajir was hired as UCF’s director of athletics was his ability to fundraise. UCF has reached new fundraising heights as they became members of the Big 12 Conference. While that accomplishment is great, this project required a different kind of funding.
Enter Orange County’s Tourist Development Tax.
The TDT is a tax that is added on to tourist-related items such as hotel stays. This money is put into an account for the purpose of building or improving things that will drive tourism. Various organizations present project ideas to the TDT committee and they decide which projects to fund and which ones they don’t. UCF decided to shoot their shot as Mohajir and president Alexander Cartwright presented their plan for the new Roth Tower.
UCF surprised critics by being awarded $90 million dollars of TDT funding. The funding didn’t come in all at once, but is spaced out at $10 million over nine years. With this guarantee in place, UCF was able to the needed approvals to secure the bonds needed to get construction started.
With a new round of TDT funding upon us, UCF has submitted another proposal for multiple facility projects. This proposal is currently still under consideration and the school should find out the final verdict in the coming days.
The right move at the right time
There were some vocal fans who felt that expanding the general seating or adding shade should have been the first priority and while their requests are legitimate, they were not the right move to do at this time.
UCF’s fanbase continues to grow, but a full bowl expansion would raise the capacity from 44k and change to closer to the 63k to 65k range. Currently, there isn’t the demand to fill the stadium. UCF is better off following what Louisville did and build the demand up to the point where the expansion sells itself. They’ll get there, but not today.
Anyone who has been to the Bounce House knows it can get really hot. It’s a steel stadium with metal bleachers and it can become quite the frying pan. Some fans have been vocal about building some sort of large-scale shade providing structure. While it’s a reasonable request, getting it done is another story. First, unlike Roth Tower, there is no financial ROI, so there was no chance of this being a TDT funded project. Second, the plan is still to one day expand the stadium. It might prove more difficult if a large-scale shade providing structure is built and then needs to be torn down for stadium expansion. The new Roth Tower will help as its wingspan is much wider than the prior building and will provide more shade.
Those noon kickoffs will still be brutal. Plan accordingly.
What is in the new Roth Tower
Roth Tower took what was originally there and expanded it greatly. The original building was gutted as the new structure was built around it. This took two offseasons to do. The new tower highlights include:
- *There are now four levels of usable space.
- *An increase in usable club space from 4,400sqft to 15,650sqft, an increase of 256%
- *A 42% increase in club seats
- *Loge seating
*28 luxury suits, which are approximately 38% larger in size
*34 outdoor sky suites
*Larger broadcast area for TV partners
*Exclusive Spanish broadcast room
The expanded club floorspace will allow UCF to host both gameday and non-gameday events. This includes weddings, receptions, business meetings, and more. By designing it this way, it helps bring in more revenue and helps justify the TDT funding UCF received.
Looking back to look forward
To understand where UCF is going with Roth Tower 2.0, we need to look back at its predecessor.
Roth Tower was part of the original stadium project in the early to mid 2000s. It housed the Stadium Club, Tower Club, various suites, press box, broadcasters, coaches and more. It was built for a Conference USA team on a Conference USA budget. As time went on, UCF started to outgrow the facility. The technological requirements for in-house game production flows through the tower and more infrastructure was needed to keep up. On the sixth floor where the press box, coaches, and broadcasters are, you would see wires everywhere.
As you can see from the image below, expansion of the tower was always part of the plan. This is an old image during the design phase of the then named Bright House Networks Stadium.
While there are similarities, the new design has taken modern aesthetics into consideration and is built to be a multi-function destination the school can use. With the use of TDT dollars, it is imperative the school pushes the use of the facility in as many ways as possible. It’s a new era in UCF football.
The new Roth Tower will host UCF’s first football game of 2026 on Thursday, September 3rd.
