@rezynezy The ARC is way to large for them to do that. My guess is that the new arena would become the basketball and Volleyball arena with hilltop remaining as training facility. Outside of that my guess is they will revamp it to fit other areas. Maybe moving Kroenche and Football over to be closer to Brown Field or fully giving it to recreational sports since they also utilize the building. The pool will also remain for the swim team.
@beacon92 there were rumors that they are building an inflatable football facility on the old hospital site. Much like the baseball facility in crown point and the Courts tennis facility. As for retro fitting the arc, all theh would do is probably just throw the tarp down over the mezzanine and only use the mezzanine for occasional throw back games, or in my personal opinion. Try to get bids for the IHSAA tournament to host sectionals and regionals. NCAA allows for schools tk host state sponsored athletic events still. Swim doesn't even use the pool for anything other than practices. I actually used to swim at VHS and we swimmers were forced into being timers for VU meets
The drawing that were shown to the Cigar crowd at $1000 per ticket at Homecoming (no, I wasn't one of them, just slightly outside my budget limitations!) (I'm told) showed the new arena being built on the northside of Brown Field, turning the visitor side into the home stands and then, as part of the new facility, adding a club which could view both the new arena activities as well as the football games. That is all I know.
To get us all on a somewhat factual same page here……
Small has acknowledged in that article that Nikki published in the Torch not so long ago that the following will be happening in the near-term future - starting as early as this summer:
>> Additional upgrades to the ARC for 2024-25 are in the works [because, IMO, a new arena is years away and, in the meantime, we at a serviceable venue].
>> He specifically alluded to a number of decisions being made on a new arena by later this year.
>> I got the sense from his discussion that the ARC will be eventually repurposed and upgraded, over time, to better serve the entire Valpo community and that it will never go away.
Padilla has verbally described a vision for a new arena that would be located behind Brown Field where Lebein Hall currently sits. Those two buildings would need to be demolished, but that would only be possible, I assume, if a new nursing and medical sciences building goes up first. The arena structure would provide new home grandstand seating, an expanded press box for Brown Field facing south and possibly premium seating for football that might also double as premium seating for BB. To my limited knowledge, no official concept renderings have been shared publicly, except for what 72 mentioned above.
Small also mentioned to Nikki that a priority is being placed on an additional artificial playing surface that will be built and could be topped with an inflatable dome for year round use by all sports teams (not just football). However, I could not determine if he attached any time frame to that initiative, so that might still be in the “nice-to-have” category, and probably lower on the ladder than the arena. On a positive note, there’s open land on the Porter Hospital property for that right now.
Facilities discussions can be entertaining, but at this point, maybe two or a half dozen people at the university have any substantive knowledge about this and they are pretty close-lipped. All we can do here is discuss this topic in aspirational terms.
ADDITIONAL PER$PECTIVE: Troy State built a very nice 6,000 seat arena on campus in 2012 for $40 million. Keep in mind, those were 2012 dollars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Arena
@vulb62 This is also what I heard. Only info I have that is different was that the Nursing program would take over the old law building and the law building would be renovated to accommodate the nursing program as the "new premier" program in laws absence. I do not believe the old nursing building should be demolished per se. I personally think they should look into repurposing the building as office space, training, and player development. This could cut costs significantly. I intended for this topic to be aspirational. Off season can get quite slow after all. Hopefully new info directly from athletics comes sooner rather than later
@vulb62 To comment on further ARC renovations, I fail to see what else they could do in order to better the ARC. They already cant do too much to it as it is also the student rec center and they cant make improvements that would be a detriment to the student rec activities.
I do not think the Nursing will move to the Law building. They have recently moved education social work and have the Access college situated there. The new nursing building will need a lot of classroom and lab space that would probably be just as expensive to retrofit to an old building made mostly of offices and a few lecture rooms than to build a new facility overall. Maybe if they ever tear down the art and psyc building that caught fire they could put the nursing building or the dome there
As for improvements to the ARC, one thing would be to replace the bleachers with chairback seating. This would also project a more "stadium" appearance for TV purposes. Other than that, air conditioning would certainly be nice for those hot September days as well as all summer for athletes and students staying on campus.
@rezynezy That rumor about the inflatable football facility was told to me when I was getting recruited. They said that there was a chance ground would be broken in 2016 or 2017. All these years later there has been no development on the hospital site and nothing else was ever said about that potential dome/bubble.
However, it’s nice to see Dr. Small acknowledge that the dome/bubble is still a possibility alongside the other Athletic facility developments.
As for improvements to the ARC, one thing would be to replace the bleachers with chairback seating. This would also project a more "stadium" appearance for TV purposes. Other than that, air conditioning would certainly be nice for those hot September days as well as all summer for athletes and students staying on campus.
Agree, 72. Upgrades are not going to be dramatic. They will be practical and pointed more at infrastructure to set the ARC up for the next 20 years. In my mind, we are now addressing the ARC as our transitional or interim athletics facility. It’s stop gap for MBB, but has a major role in all the other recreational and sports needs of whole community.
As for improvements to the ARC, one thing would be to replace the bleachers with chairback seating. This would also project a more "stadium" appearance for TV purposes. Other than that, air conditioning would certainly be nice for those hot September days as well as all summer for athletes and students staying on campus.
Agree, 72. Upgrades are not going to be dramatic. They will be practical and pointed more at infrastructure to set the ARC up for the next 20 years. In my mind, we are now addressing the ARC as our transitional or interim athletics facility. It’s stop gap for MBB, but has a major role in all the other recreational and sports needs of whole community.
I think its also important to acknowledge that the ARC was probably never intended to be a mid major facility in the first place. The Mid-Continent, Summit, and even early Horizon league were all considered low major and the ARCs construction reflects gyms built for low major schools. When VU joined the Valley, they boosted themselves to the Mid Major stage, and the ARC is definitely not a mid major caliber facility.
At the time, for Valpo, the ARC, compared to Hilltop, was a quantum leap ahead. This was the late 1980s - 36 years ago. College basketball was just coming out of the University vs. College concept of competition. But into the 90s things accelerated. It was a pretty good place for the Mid-Con. And into the 2000s it held its own among Horizon arenas — nobody wanted to play us in our house and 4k attendance was common. But even then the Drews saw we were losing ground facility-wise. Yet, on two major occasions — the. Sweet 16 run and the NIT run — Valpo failed to leverage those opportunities. And so, here we are trying to make up for lost time and opportunity.
The next arena must be built not for today, but for 2034 and, if feasible, beyond.
The next arena must be built not for today, but for 2034 and, if feasible, beyond.
This is what I have been trying to say. It is why I think 8k would be a good size and why the Region needs to be involved in the construction. Valpo has no where to go but up in terms of fan support and fan experience. We have the 3rd largest market in the valley considering we share our market with UIC. In my eyes there is nowhere to go but up in terms of fan support and player development.
Maybe if they ever tear down the art and psyc building that caught fire they could put the nursing building or the dome there.
Does anybody know why this hasn't happened yet? It's a fairly ugly looking scar on that area around the intersection of Linwood & Mound. Are they trying to preserve some of the nostalgia of the time when that building was built by the engineering students in the late 1940's and the story used in a Hollywood film, Ventureof Faith? That was 2022 and it's been a real mess sitting there for almost 2 years.
