NCAAbbs

new arena possibility

OK, time for Pittiful to go ape s**t over the possibility of h**key......

6,000 seat arena? Ugh...make it atleast 7,000.

Does the TRI really need another Viking Hall?

Sounds like it will be smaller than Freedom Hall (~8,000 seats). Waste of money if you can't make it bigger and bring in better acts.

Needs to be atleast 8,000 fixed for basketball/hockey, and should be able to house over 10,000 for concerts and have luxury boxes. It would also need to be built within a close enough promixity to the campus that students would be able to walk to it for games.

Freedom Hall can seat 8000? Didn't know that. But like I have mentioned before, this would be the only way we "all" could afford and get a new arena. Off-campus facilities work, but I would rather have something on campus.

Freedom Hall doesn't seat 8,000.

It seats about 3/4 of that.

you are insane if you think taking basketball OFF-CAMPUS is a good idea! You're only chance for decent attendance from the people who actually pay the bills (STUDENTS) is to be there.

There are so many 'cons' for etsu to do this beyond the on-campus factor: multi-use facilities restrict access to your home court; you literally need to build a practice facility to accomodate both m/w with an identical floor (Prater's does this all the time); visiting teams have restricted access for shoot arounds; you have NO CONTROL as a department on how the venue is used/scheduled; marketing/signage becomes a shared or even one-sided proposition for you.

etsu really needs their own facility and to stop taking crumbs from people.

According to Freedom Hall's web site, seating capacity for basketball with "bleachers" is 5914, full arena for a concert is 6650, "in the round concert" is 6912.

http://www.johnsoncitytn.org/index.php?page=home-12

They're actually putting in new seats, which will increase the capacity by about 200.

They are truly wasting taxpayer money by putting anything into that barn except the demolition contract.

Well first of all, students are only a small portion of those who really pay for things at state universities, and most importantly the tax payers pay. If I remember correctly at ETSU the faculty pays more than students do, i.e. grant funded research dollars generated by the faculty exceeds the dollars paid by student's tuition.

Now on to my greater point...with the horrid parking on campus...just exactly which parking lots should be raised to make way for more buildings???

Don't get me wrong, I agree that off-campus facilities aren't ideal but ETSU is landlocked. Off campus facilities have become a way of life at ETSU, Allied Health Sciences in Elizabethton, Physical Therapy and Pharmacy at the VA, Med School, Med School Library and bookstore, at the VA, softball field behind Kroger’s, baseball field proposed to be near Tennessee Street, etc.

With the need for a football field, a basketball venue/convocation center, additional student housing, and a fine arts building, where will students, faculty and staff park? The alternative to off campus facilities is on campus facilities with off campus parking. That idea went over really well during the Spring semester debate about the consultant report on parking (last remark stated with sarcasm).

As I tried to impress upon the powers that be at the time, when State of Franklin was built, one of the worst mistakes in ETSU history was to not grab, at almost any price, the land between the road and the railroad tracks/VA. There was really no excuse for the state/ETSU not buying that land. Yes, it was expensive, but would have paid off handsomely eventually.

Eventually (meaning when money grows on trees), the ultimate solution is to replace the dome.

Perhaps parking garages could be part of a new building plan.

I think they are a part of the official plan, but they are expensive and students/staff are not happy about that option.

Ideally I agree with Bow. I'd like to see an arena that would serve the entire community placed on the ETSU campus- or perhaps nearby. After all, Poor Richards and McDonalds might not be technically on campus, but they are.

I agree but (assuming that site becomes a convocation center) that doesn't solve the need for a football stadium, fine arts center, and housing.

One thing is for sure, ETSU will never be able fund (on it's own) a brand new basketball arena. I dare to say ETSU would have problems funding a renovation of the Dome to make it basketball/event worthy.

I thought Memorial Center was going to be razed by 2014.

Yeah, I know. Insert laugh track here.

If there is one thing ETSU could do not to get me to go to a basketball game, it would be to hold it off campus. I would never go to an off campus home game, and neither would most of the current students. And if we cant build it 10,000+, we dont need to build another building in this city. There are countless reasons why this is a bad idea, all the more reason I expect it to happen.

I hear everyone here. This is actually one of the reasons why I once was a great defender of Memorial Center.

Still, BucDoctor raises a good point. Where would one put a new arena?

The other thing that I think should be looked at concerning a new arena. ETSU football will likely not come back if it is completed before football is reinstated.

I say this because I believe a new arena, if built properly, would attract an indoor football team. Johnson City might not be large enough for an Arena Football team, but it would be large enough for an AFL2 team or other indoor football league teams.

And that could be promoted as the local football team, the way ETSU was.

My opinion about the parking problem with a new arena would be a parking garage. It could be placed between the basketball arena and football stadium. It could hold parking for both those sports and during the day, parking for students. A win/win situation I think. Now if ETSU could get the leadership to accomplish these things...

ETSU doesnt have leadership. It has leadershit.

That would describe our leadership in a nutshell. It is also why our dreams of new basketball and football facilities are just a pipe dream.

What would students/staff have against parking garages?

Paying for them. As I understand, no state monies can go toward parking. Asking them to pay for a garage was a recommendation of the parking consultant's report this past Spring. Remember the increase in parking fees recommended...

On game nights more students find downtown than do the dome. I am sure the Buc shot shuttle would take any student that did not drive.

And just think of how downtown would grow (food, shops, leisure recreation, condo's) if there was an active arena there! (events, concerts, hockey, arena football, ETSU basketball)

I agree. But unfortunately I have mentioned things like this to our leaders who would like to grow downtown, and instead what I hear is that we should have meters and a nice sculpture in the middle of the fountain.

doc,
I'm not talking about etsu's bills, I'm just referring strictly to the fee allocations from students that keep the doors open for athletics at etsu. Institutional aid (restricted student fee and student maintenacence fee allocation) amounts to about 85% (if not higher) of athletics budget revenue. I can't get an actual straight answer on the exact amount becasue evidently no one can read the screens, but if the amount is less, I'll buy Pitt a beer.

I'm just trying to be "student-friendly" here and say that students should have access to the teams they are paying for, it's sure not the private donations, state/city funding, or commercialism keeping the place open over on the second floor of the doom-dome!

still think there are more cons to sharing a facility than what it's worth, in fact, sharing the dome has cost the department thousands of dollars in potential revenue because the place is "managed" by the university and NOBODY wants to work with that reservation witch!!! shew... I'm on a roll today!

Thanks for the clarification!