@historyman The university was negotiating with the insurance company and now has been awaiting full payment, which should be soon. Those funds will be used for removal of the building.
I was looking through the MVC wiki for arena capacities and noticed on the profile of the ARC that Barton-Malow intentionally left the building with the structure to support an expansion of up to 10k seats if VU ever decided to do so. My question then becomes, were logistics ever done to see how much this would cost, and would it be cheaper to do so rather than shell out the money for a completely new arena?
This is Allen Arena at Lipscomb in Nashville. I've seen it and it is impressive. Estimated cost in 2022 dollars is 27.3 million. Look closely at the writeup and see that they have hosted minor league teams here as well. Seating capacity for games, 5028. For concerts, 3845-5584. Would be perfect for Valpo.
Valpo doesn't really need a larger facility and I'm not sure the University or the surrounding area would be capable of supporting an Arena of any much larger than 6,000 or so.
@jd24 When looking at just the city of Valparaiso, I would agree. 5-6k is more than enough to suit the needs of the city
However, based on the efforts of Powell and the athletics dept as a whole, the vision is most likely not to just be a team for Valpo, but for the entirety of NWI. NWI does not, too my knowledge, have a large scale civic center in NWI aside from the Genesis Center in Gary which is abandoned? not abandoned? saw conflicting info on the subject. I feel like the view should not just be for a "gym", but for a "center" if you catch my drift. Looking at the "Uplift Valpo" plan, and other articles, this does seem to be the case. VU is looking to build something for the community rather than just a space for VU and VU only. Hopefully they learned their mistakes from when they were approached by school cooperation in regards to the VAC. (VU wanted the VAC to be built on VU property and run by VU but with the city money and was basically told to shove it). A civic center built in cooperation with the city, county, and maybe the region as a whole would greatly release some of the financial burdens while also provided a state of the art arena for basketball, and provide passive income for both the city and the school via a revenue split. Hopefully the lofty aspirations of Powell and Small are able to play out. there are around 35k people in the city of Valparaiso, and roughly 600k people in lake and porter county. Looking outside the city for support has the potential to give VU a massive return on investment
That's why I posted about Lipscomb's arena. Seats 5028 for basketball. Perfect size for Valpo.
During my time on campus, we were always told that the potential for expansion would only be 1,000 to 2,000 seats, in knocking out the upper end of the chairback section to allow for more Mezz? I would be very surprised if we could actually build a capacity of 10,000 with the building design, outside of the fact that it is not needed to be that large.
That's why I posted about Lipscomb's arena. Seats 5028 for basketball. Perfect size for Valpo.
Absolutely
And I might add, the perfect size for non-athletic events for the region surrounding Valpo proper.
With the recent developments, we can assume the ARC is probably going to remain our home for a few more years. So I think it's time to contemplate what is needed on that front. For starters, some darn AC. Let me tell ya I was sweating bullets officiating the middle schoolers and that was only 5 minutes. Not having AC is a "home court advantage" we don't really want. I'd also like to see the floor level new chair backs, and on both sides. Nor having comfortable seating really hurts. Maybe we can get a bleaker set on the concessions side as well? Something like thr Munster Dome has where they just wheel it in and out for games. Ultimately success is going to determine how fast we can get out of the ARC at this point. More wins = more money at the end of the day
Above is a rendering for the GSU convocation hall. Make the windows a media center, make that wall a retractable seating arrangement for a stage, and shave off some of the upper deck and turn it into a Mezzanine level like Hulman, and this would be a decent home court for not too much money all things considered. When we eventually get renderings I'd expect to see something along these lines, but on a smaller scale.
Which GSU?
@vulb62 Georgia St. Multiple GSUs. Should have clarified. The real arena is very similar to this mock up albeit rotated 90 degrees and more electronics.
85 mil cost of construction. May seem like a high price tag, but I think the plan to gut the ARC of all its toys would reduce electronics costs. Same as reducing the capacity to around the 6.5- 7k mark. Factoring in the dual use factor, I'd say a lot more bang for your buck is going to be needed. Hence the concert venue and convention hall aspects a lot of new arenas go for. Renting the space for offseason events brings in TONS of revenue for these schools.
7,500 seats for BB. $85 million (2022 dollars when it opened).
Georgia State is in Atlanta not in a relatively rural NWI.
