UT President Fenves - Erwin Center Will Be Demolished

In an interview with Austin Statesman staff, he said the Erwin Center and Medical School cannot be on the same land. Another defeat for Steve Patterson who was said to be advocating remodeling the Erwin Center because of the costs to replace it.

The bad news? Fenves did not rule out building a new arena off campus which may be an acknowledgment that Patterson is correct about being worried about the high cost to build a new arena on campus.

The good news? Fenves did not give Patterson a ringing endorsement as the AD.

http://www.hookem.com/story/texas-fenves-patterson-continue-to-work-through-the-issues/

 

And then fewer students will come to games, and the bigwigs will say "wow, look at the sorry student support we have" and do less for students than before, making even fewer want to come to games, and etc etc etc negative feedback loop....

 

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Agreed. Building an arena next to the track stadium needs to happen. Should be plenty of parking with the new garages associated with the medical school and Manor Garage and the nearby LBJ lots.

 

Students would go to games if they were worth going to. I think Smart needs two seasons (because we lose half our roster after his 1st season) to show what he can do with the program. If his style gets butts in the seats, students will go. Even if they put the new city-subsidized arena on the old Statesman site. If UConn can get 5K students to commute 45 minutes every other week for a "home" game at the XL Center, I don't see why we can't get people to a brand spankin' new arena in a nice location with the help of shuttles.

I'd love an arena near RecSports, maybe just south of the soccer stadium, but the costs of going at it alone might not be worth it. And then when students would continue to not show up, we couldn't play the "man we thought on-campus would solve our problems" card.

 

Texas BB is Not UConn BB. Not even close.

And RecSports facility on San Jacinto would be remodeled / converted to take the place of Cooley.

 

Should UT choose to go it alone, doing a basketball only arena makes a lot more sense. Even if they want to do a similar building to the FEC, the best location imo seems to be the parking lot just south of the soccer/track field. A practice facilities for the basketball teams could also be built right to it. With UT seemingly set on eliminating surface parking in favor of garage parking, using that parking lot would make sense. The Manor garage is immediately north (next to the soccer/track field. The Brazos and Trinity garages are within a short walking distance of that location. It’s possible that Robert Dedman Drive might need to be changed to provide a bit more room but that is hardly a big problem.

 

Pretty sure the Rec Sports facility nearby could be converted into a practice facility. Don't think there would be enough for a stand alone building next to an arena.

 

If the city of Austin wants an arena, the city can build one. UT needs a UT only basketball specific arena. 10,000 seats, maybe 12,000 tops.

 

Definitely needs to be on campus, but I would think 14,000 minimum.

 

Why? Have you seen what Erwin looks like during a normal conference game? More bats than people in the mezzanine corners. I'd rather have a field house style arena with fewer seats, but all on top of the court.

I'd want it to look like this, except with just those first two tiers (no need for an upper deck that high to push capacity).

 

Buildings make money by having events. You don't build a building for what 30 events a year (MBB and WBB). You building one flexible enough to host concerts and other large functions (get a list of uses of the Erwin Center for the past 12 months). Anything less than 20,000 is just pissing into the wind.

 

20K? So we pay the entire bill for the 5th biggest college arena in the country, despite the obvious attendance deficits we've had since Erwin was built?

You can still host all the same stuff in a 12K arena that you can a 14K arena.

 

Unfortunately that is not the way the "booking system" works. The bigger the act - the more permanent seats in the venue they will demand. Schools in big cities can get by with smaller arenas since there are larger ones around. Not the case in Austin.

Not say it is right or wrong - just saying how the system works.

 

This sounds a whole lot like Patterson "bottom line" stuff. Are we trying to build a basketball venue for the university, or a money-making tool so Shania Twain doesn't skip the UT campus when she comes to town?

If we're paying for the whole thing like we did with Erwin (even though I'm ok with a partnership with the city, in which case, fire up the jets for a 20K downtown arena), then it needs to be an efficient use of our resources. And actually look full for basketball games. There are plenty of awesome venues at great schools across the country that have 10K-14K seats. I think we have a neat opportunity to make something special, and an all-purpose cave with horrible sight lines isn't high on my list.

 

Looks good, but 12,000 is a huge step backwards for a university the size of Texas and with aspirations to be a top basketball program. 14,000 minimum.

 

Granted, I know it was a rare event, but I remember back when I was a student and we beat #3 (IIRC) Wake Forrest and Chris Paul and there were barely a few dozen empty chairs in the entire Erwin Center. I think they even ran out of room for students; I know I ended up near the very top of the upper deck and there were a lot of guys in line behind me. Don't remember exactly how the basketball tickets worked back then though.

 

Austin traffic only gets worse, not better. More and more buildings are being erected downtown between UT and the proposed site.

From 2008-2010, I witnessed thousands of a students in multiple big games get turned away because they could not get tickets. I went into the area, and there were quite a few empty rows in the non student part in the lower deck. I heard so many students saying "never going to waste time trying to attend one of these again. Cannot get in." Corporations and others buy tickets for the season and attend 2 games. Now if we value the revenue more than attendance, okay, but understand it leads to paid for but empty seats. A smaller stadium means that students will have even fewer seats. I guess it could be off campus since the students will basically not have a college basketball team at that point. I'm sure 0 student attendance will breed future texas basketball fans and support.... NOT.

 

I would like to see it on campus if possible. If they are going to demolish the printing building behind Disch-Faulk, could it be there and put the tennis center somewhere else.

Leave the parking areas around the baseball stadium intact and if necessary, build a parking garage. I guess it would be a little far from campus, but better than downtown.

It would also save the tailgating areas for baseball, yes that is also part of my plan, but still it's better than what is going on now.

When I was a student we had a student draw for tickets. We thought we were going to be good, so we drew season tickets. The tickets were in a mediocre at best section, but we got to see all the home games. That was in 1982 and many were turned away, that Arkansas game, there were several thousand outside seeking tickets. It was quite a season till Wacker went down on the silt covered floor of Waco's terrible gym.

 

Not ideal, but I agree a far better option than downtown or south of the river. Like the baseball stadium, it would still be accessible to the students without terrible traffic in the way.

 

I talked to a money guy this morning (played FB from 83-86) and he states that the Statesman site is all but done. The city is just waiting to see how much UT will chip in before making a joint announcement. They tried to jump the gun last February by leaking the story about the location, but Patterson et al didn't budge, instead waiting to see if it would be possible to keep an on-campus location without hurting anyone's feelings.

He said they even had renderings made of what an arena at that site would look like. Not sure which firms are behind those renderings, but they had pictures of SXSW and ACL Fest and whatever else at the new arena, as well as a special image of a Texas basketball game in which the arena would light up orange on the outside. He said it looked very spaceshippy.

 

A more likely scenario given the current projections of FEC staying intact for 6-15 more years, and the development restrictions at the old AAS site (transportation/environmental/impervious cover/best use) would be a UT or COA (or JV) purchase, short term hold, then flip to a private developer. Stratus is snatching up adjacent acreage. TXDoT will eventually abandon and offer up the Riverside complex to generate required revenue for their budget. If I were a betting man, I'd say this area will be breaking ground on a PUD/MU planned neighborhood development project by 2020; and an arena will not be part of that plan.

 

Cameron at Duke seats less than 10,000, and thats about as big time as you can get in college basketball. You guys are talking about when U2 comes to town for a concert. The city of Austin needs to step up to the plate for that. UT doesnt need 20K seats for the basketball team. Austin is a big boy city now, not a college town anymore. If the city wants a big venue, the city can build it.

 

Count me in for a basketball only fieldhouse type venue that sells alcohol. Loud and proud Texas basketball environment. Once the havoc style kicks in full force, would be a tough venue to visit.

Enough with the corporate big money plays and watered down college sports atmosphere. The venue needs to be a bad**** basketball-focused facility that rallies the crowd and helps us win games.

Our top 3 programs need one focus behind all decisions...get back to winning titles. The money will follow.

 

What Brad said.

 

There is supposed to be a meeting about this tonight, at the Carver Museum, in east Austin.

Anybody else know anything about this?

 

i do not see anything listed regarding a meeting... are we sure?

 

Not sure, is why I asked, saw somebody post it on another forum, that is usually reliable about these kind of things.

 

This story line reaaaally shut down in Feb 2015. I've done a bunch of digging and got nothin concrete. Last conjecture I heard was Myers parking lot is being reserved for future Med school expansion. AAS tract is not going to happen. Rumblings of a potential Mueller location. CoA more likely a long term lease player than a JV with UT.

 

I rechecked and it's more a meeting about keeping good relations with that neighborhood, than about the basketball arena.

UT doesn't want to just start bulldozing stuff there, without smoothing thing over. The University does have property there, maybe not ideal for a basketball arena though.