"The Plan" is officially in place

[ZiggyZoomba]

Best quote on this was said to me directly from Greg Christopher himself a while ago.

"Our goal is to build a facility that will give us the biggest home-court advantage possible for our basketball and volleyball programs."

That is the driving force behind the design. I'm absolutely convinced that it will be perfect.

[Schadenfreude]

5500? That would be a huge mistake IMHO.

It would be a good decision. In my humble opinion.

This program isn't filling Anderson Arena. Why build bigger?

Building 7,000 seats would be a bit like adding 15,000 more at the Doyt. I hope we do add football seating someday, but only because we need it. Right now, we don't. And the same is true in basketball.

[BGSU33]

I really hope the new facility’s capacity is more than 5,500. That is only about 800 more seats than we have already in Anderson Arena. I would like to see nothing short of at least 6,000 minimum. Before Anderson Arena went to chairback seats on the lower west side, its capacity was near that. First and foremost, I am not saying we need a 10,000-plus capacity facility here. We don’t. That said, I do believe we should strongly consider something in the 7,000-8,000 range. The thing we can’t get tunnel vision with is, this building is going to be a “Convocation” Center, not just an athletic arena. Is 5,500 large enough for most of our athletic events? Yes. But for other events such as concerts, graduation, etc., it would be nice to have the capacity to accommodate these sort of events as well.

I do have faith that we are going to design this facility first class. After seeing the Sebo Center and without seeing artist rendering of this new facility, I am really excited to see this project get off the ground. I will miss Anderson Arena, but it just has too many shortcomings despite the some of the great things in still provides.

[Dayons_Den]

I really hope the new facility’s capacity is more than 5,500. That is only about 800 more seats than we have already in Anderson Arena. I would like to see nothing short of at least 6,000 minimum. Before Anderson Arena went to chairback seats on the lower west side, its capacity was near that. First and foremost, I am not saying we need a 10,000-plus capacity facility here. We don’t. That said, I do believe we should strongly consider something in the 7,000-8,000 range. The thing we can’t get tunnel vision with is, this building is going to be a “Convocation” Center, not just an athletic arena. Is 5,500 large enough for most of our athletic events? Yes. But for other events such as concerts, graduation, etc., it would be nice to have the capacity to accommodate these sort of events as well.

I do have faith that we are going to design this facility first class. After seeing the Sebo Center and without seeing artist rendering of this new facility, I am really excited to see this project get off the ground. I will miss Anderson Arena, but it just has too many shortcomings despite the some of the great things in still provides.

With floor seating a 5,500 seat arena could crow to 7-9k.

[Falconboy]

5500? That would be a huge mistake IMHO.

It would be a good decision. In my humble opinion.

This program isn't filling Anderson Arena. Why build bigger?

Building 7,000 seats would be a bit like adding 15,000 more at the Doyt. I hope we do add football seating someday, but only because we need it. Right now, we don't. And the same is true in basketball.

While I tend to agree with what you said in your other post about BG having never needed anything bigger in the past, emphasis on the PAST. I don't want to look to what we've needed or got by with in the past to judge what we should be in the future. Building only a 5500 seat arena would basically be saying for all time, we will never ever bring really good high quality and high prestige opponents to our arena. You think OSU goes to Butler with them having a crumpy dump of an arena regardless of their ranking? Now Butler Hinkle Fieldhouse may have been built in 1928 but it has had renovations done to it around 1990 that make it a stellar facility(although very odd looking). I just think building a brand new convo to only 5500 is aiming too low in our expectations which are keeping us down.

Hinkle Field House. Sorry for the huge pics.

[TG1996]

Hinkle Fieldhouse is sweet, but basketball in Ohio is not equal to basketball in Ohio, much less BG, where the number of capacity crowds in the last two decades can be counted on both hands and MAYBE a foot.

[TG1996]

Anyone hear anything in the plans for an athletic museum which should be about 10 times bigger than the one in AA? There is so much cool stuff in that little room and I know Coach Cochrane would love to see a new museum in his lifetime.

There will (should) be. When I talked to Mickey last year, he said one of the things they've told him is whether they built new or renovated AA, there will be a more public archive area, which is great.

I said it here then, I think I'll take the chance to say it again... if anyone might know of access to mannequins, he's looking for them. He's got racks and racks of old jerseys/coats/sweaters from BG's athletic past, but no real way of displaying them other than on hangars.

[h2oville rocket]

basketball in Ohio is not equal to basketball in Ohio,

Is this the new math?

[TG1996]

basketball in Ohio is not equal to basketball in Ohio,

Is this the new math?

I like to call Indiana "West Ohio", thus the confusion.

Besides, it was directed at falconboy...clarity is not a requirement.

[MacGuy]

Butler, with a 29-7 record last year, averaged 5,600 at home games. Any questions?

[FalconTurf]

5,500 sounds about right to me. Let's look at a successful mid-major like Gonzaga for a minute. If we could have their 6,000 seat arena with sellouts I would be thrilled.

http://gozags.cstv.com/facilities/gonz-mccarthey.html

Best of their arena description from their website IMO:
1. The McCarthey Athletic Center has a seating capacity of 6,000 for basketball games. All seats are individual and have arm and backrests.
2. After 39 years competing in the powerful atmosphere of the Kennel in the Charlotte Y. Martin Centre, Gonzaga Basketball shot over to the newly built, $25 million, 148,000 ft2 McCarthey Athletic Center. Completed in November 2004, the McCarthey Athletic Center became the new "Kennel".

[FalconTurf]

And the exterior picture looks good too.
http://gozags.cstv.com/facilities/gonz-facilities.htmlMcCarthey Athletic Center (Basketball)
A little more description from the website:
After 35 years competing in the powerful atmosphere of the Kennel in the Charlotte Y. Martin Centre, Gonzaga Basketball shot over to the newly built, $25 million McCarthey Athletic Center. Completed in November 2004, the McCarthey Athletic Center houses the men's and women's basketball games, locker rooms, practice facility, and coaching offices. This new arena includes six concessions, 12 large bathrooms, 2 family restrooms, 6 luxury suites, a Club Room, 4 visiting team locker rooms, additional athletic administration offices, and practice facilities for the Gonzaga men's and women's crew teams. In addition to hosting basketball events, the McCarthey Athletic Center has the ability to host non-athletic events such as concerts, tournaments, banquets, meetings, and receptions.[/img]

[Falconboy]

Butler, with a 29-7 record last year, averaged 5,600 at home games. Any questions?

With a schedule like the Horizon League is gonna offer thats awesome. BTW, the box score for the OSU game had attendance at 10k. So they obviously had no problem packing the place when a big name school comes in. This is where I want the BG basketball program to be in the future or at least close to it. Even though I don't expect to ever get 10k at a game in BG regardless of opponent I think we could eventually garner crowds of 6-7k with a great team and a great opponent.

[BleedOrange]

5500? That would be a huge mistake IMHO.

It would be a good decision. In my humble opinion.

This program isn't filling Anderson Arena. Why build bigger?

Building 7,000 seats would be a bit like adding 15,000 more at the Doyt. I hope we do add football seating someday, but only because we need it. Right now, we don't. And the same is true in basketball.

While I tend to agree with what you said in your other post about BG having never needed anything bigger in the past, emphasis on the PAST. I don't want to look to what we've needed or got by with in the past to judge what we should be in the future. Building only a 5500 seat arena would basically be saying for all time, we will never ever bring really good high quality and high prestige opponents to our arena. ......... I just think building a brand new convo to only 5500 is aiming too low in our expectations which are keeping us down.

Falconboy, you may take a lot of crap on this board, but you've absolutely nailed it here. People keep referring to the PAST few years when advocating the capacity of our convo. Building 5500, which was what we did in 1958, is locking in to a very tight constraint for a long time. 5500, to put it plainly, 5500 is cheap. 5500 is small minded. It not only makes the negative statements that you pointed it, it actively precludes. 5500 puts a low, permanent ceiling on what this facility can contribute to the university and NWO. Will this facility be something to take pride in, or are we building a facility just to build a facility?

When I talk about BG sports with various alumni, they refer to AA as that little "bandbox", "sh1thole", "joke", "high school gym", "rinky dink". The parking, bathroom facilities, and location are not what ever comes to mind. 5500 is not a plan for success. 5500 is a plan to continue revelling in mediocrity.

I view the future of the program and university as open ended. If our criteria for a project of this magnitude is the past few years of basketball attendance, do we really have a solid idea of what we're doing with these millions of dollars? Is there any real vision?




"Building 7,000 seats would be a bit like adding 15,000 more at the Doyt. I hope we do add football seating someday, but only because we need it. Right now, we don't. And the same is true in basketball."





This is extremely shortsighted. This is our facility for the next 50 years. I'll repeat that. 50 years. This is a major, long term investment project, not an apartment building. YOU DO NOT scale a long term, multi-purpose investment project based on "right now, we don't need it".

"Adding seats later" is almost never an option. Why? It is many times more expensive than adding them in the first place. In real, inflation adjusted terms, adding 2-3K seat 15 years from now could cost 5-10 times more than add those seats in the first place. (Hmmm, now that I think about it, this was the precise reason an expansion of AA never happened.) Beyond that, the results can be odd looking. Look at Western Michigan or that aesthetic monstrosity across the street from our rec center.

So, in the year 2060, when many us will be grandparents, we'll have a fricken 5500 seat embaressment much like what we have now. Great.

[ZiggyZoomba]

Look, I know a whole lot more about this than I can share right now... PLEASE believe me when i say this project is going to be PERFECT for BGSU. It's going to be the perfect solution for our basketball and volleyball programs. I've seen the presentations from some of the design firms that are in the running for the contract. WE WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!! They know the concerns, they know what it's going to take.

THIS IS NOT a building for anything BUT basketball and volleyball, keep that in mind. Maybe a commencement or a stray UAO concert, but it's not being designed nor funded for anything other than our basketball and volleyball programs. It is NOT going to be NW Ohio's Premier Concert Center or anything like that. That would never work.

The numbers have been run... people have been consulted... this is NOT anything less than a well-considered and completely positive move. IT WILL BE AWESOME!!!