MSU football building renovations at a standstill
Michigan State’s renovation plans for the Duffy Daugherty Football Building seem to need a renovation of their own. “Embarrassing” is how John L. Smith described the Duffy Building three years ago, and “embarrassing” is how some fans describe the fundraising project to renovate the building so far. The Lansing State Journal reports that the project is around $10 million short of it’s goal and that MSU officials are heading back to the drawing board to come up with a new fundraising strategy.
Athletic director Ron Mason said Ritrievi’s initial fund-raising strategy was faulty. He kept his efforts to five high-level donors and ended up getting just $1 million from one of them. Had MSU’s early efforts been more wide-ranging, Mason said, “we’d probably be a lot further along.”
“In my opinion, you can’t really do it that way when you’re looking at a project of that size,” Ritrievi countered. “If it’s a project of $10 million or more, you need an anchor of $5 million or more.
“You want to get $8 million or $9 million from a handful of guys. You need that to push the project forward, and then you open it up.”