Pres. Fenves on what he wants to see in a new UT basketball arena

[BringBackRoyal]

...and on a host of other issues (including the state of the football program and the infamous flight to Tulsa): http://www.hookem.com/story/one-year-later-fenves-now-speed-texas-athletics/

His views differ a bit from the recommendations in the UT Athletics Master Plan, which calls for a much larger multi-purpose arena. Here's hoping Fenves's preferences win out.

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Fenves envisions a true basketball arena, one that has 10,000 to 12,000 seats and might cost $250 million.

“Absent any other options, I want to build a basketball arena on that site south of Mike Myers Stadium,” Fenves said. “We can turn Texas into a basketball powerhouse with these two teams.

“Before we start tearing up the concrete, we’ve got a lot of steps,” Fenves said. “We’ve got to put the funding in place. That’s (in the) early stages. We’ve got some rough estimates about what a basketball arena is. But I’m very familiar with how you do these big capital projects.”

Former men’s coach Rick Barnes always lamented how the Erwin Center’s massive lower bowl hinders the fan experience. To crank up the fan volume, it truly must be at or near its 16,540-seat capacity.

Fenves, who was a regular attendee at men’s and women’s games, said he wants a building that is “sold out, tight, loud and exciting.”

“If you’ve been in a sold-out arena where it’s really thumping, you don’t quite get that in the Erwin Center,” he said. “So if we are going to build an arena, my preference is it be designed to be a premier venue for basketball.”

 

[BringBackRoyal]

I should add that I think the arena needs to seat more than 12,000 (somewhere between 13-14,000), but I'm not that concerned about Fenves's off-the-cuff statements about specific capacity numbers. Studies of various needs will show (and have shown) that it needs to accommodate more people than that. But hopefully his stated preference will keep the project from becoming the 17,450-seat behemoth that the Master Plan discusses as a possibility.

I'm mainly just encouraged that he's making a strong statement that the venue needs to be designed to optimize the atmosphere for basketball games over anything else. (And if that means that it would be a suboptimal venue for concerts and so forth -- which it probably does, unless technology has made great acoustic variability possible in a large arena -- so be it, as far as I'm concerned.)

 

[BringBackRoyal]

I guess I was the only one to almost crap myself with excitement upon seeing this...?

 

[ryan_sublett]

I think this is great. It wouldn't suprise me if Shaka has had some influence in this. I just feel like he's really serious about turning Texas in to the job, and a big power.

 

[HornsRuleU]

Moving Texas basketball out of the noise-killing Erwin Center has been decades overdue.

 

[Texxxxas]

I guess I was the only one to almost crap myself with excitement upon seeing this...?

Haha, no, I'm right there with you.

 

[BringBackRoyal]

Glad I'm not totally alone. (I thought Metcalf would at least be excited to hear the news, but then I remembered he has a strange, nostalgic love for our current mausoleum. )

Here are a couple of recently constructed arenas that I really like (click to zoom). Would love to see something along these lines. Notice that both have seating for students on one side of the court constructed such that students can stand the entire game without obstructing the views of the old folks immediately behind them.

UVA's arena, completed in 2006. Capacity is 14,600.

Oregon's arena, completed in 2011. Seats 12,400.

 

[DrinkToIt]

I should add that I think the arena needs to seat more than 12,000 (somewhere between 13-14,000), but I'm not that concerned about Fenves's off-the-cuff statements about specific capacity numbers. Studies of various needs will show (and have shown) that it needs to accommodate more people than that. But hopefully his stated preference will keep the project from becoming the 17,450-seat behemoth that the Master Plan discusses as a possibility.

I'm mainly just encouraged that he's making a strong statement that the venue needs to be designed to optimize the atmosphere for basketball games over anything else. (And if that means that it would be a suboptimal venue for concerts and so forth -- which it probably does, unless technology has made great acoustic variability possible in a large arena -- so be it, as far as I'm concerned.)

Accoustics for concerts be damned. The city of Austin can build its own arena, unless they are going to contribute to the cost of this thing. And secondly, we arent talking about opera performances here. Its all amplified sound, so accoustics is going to depend more on how the sound systems for shows are set up, not the actual design of the arena. Frankly, no modern style arena is good "acoustically" and amplification changes everything anyway.

 

[RoboCocks21]

I feel like we will have the best venue in college basketball when it's all said and done