When you have no historic preservation plan in place every building, no matter how significant they are, is vulnerable to demolition.
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Interesting. For another thread, I looked up the bios of our current trustees, and if I remember correctly, everyone (or maybe all but one) were alumni. I thought that was too insular and that Miami needed a stronger group with an outside perspective.
Appreciate the response. I think part of the trick with a new arena is figuring out what/where has the greatest possibility of growing the program. Combined with this, I’d like to know what plans the university has to increase annual support for basketball…or not. Because if there isn’t an institutional initiative to raise the profile of the basketball program, go ahead and build a new arena in Darrtown on the cheapest land possible. It won’t make a difference.
I’ve long advocated on here for a public-facing, comprehensive long term strategic plan for athletics. What are the goals, objectives and metrics by which the university, the athletic department, and fans are to judge each program? What is the purpose of athletics at Miami? What does the school want the basketball program to be?
Without knowing what the larger goals are I don’t advocate building any new arena anywhere. But if the University comes out and says, for example, by 2030 we want to be an upper echelon non-P4 basketball program—we pledge to have annual operating budgets in the top decile of this cohort, we intend to build an annual NIL budget of $x million, we target an annual season ticket holder base of 4k people, on court we want to be a consistent top-100 RPI program, win a MAC title once every four years on average, etc etc—well then let’s talk about what, when and where a new arena does the most to accomplish said goals. A new arena should be part of a very concentrated push to elevate the program, not a one-off consideration.
Personally, I believe basketball should be the priority sport at Miami. I’d love lofty goals and an institutional push to make basketball a big freaking deal. I’d love a new arena that is state of the art, and a program that wants to compete after 25 years of utter neglect. But I want it to be a comprehensive plan, not just a facility without anything else.
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Phil04 speaks for me.
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Saving Slant Walk is part of the plan.
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That was never mentioned to me as a reason for putting it there. More that it would be easy access on the way to or returning from Uptown.
It’s a beautiful dorm and I’m not in a rush to demolish it for an arena, but those both seem like exaggerations.
Ogden just finished a major renovation this year. My son lives there now, it’s beautiful.
So it’s probably safe for several decades at least.
While I haven’t seen an official MHT poll I think i have a sense of the majority opinion on this thread. On a Miami athletic chat site with BY FAR the most engaged Miami sports fans we are still generally opposed to the slant walk location.
Can you imagine what the general sentiment amongst Miamians must be?
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At last, common sense speaks.
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This post (hopefully linked correctly) had a poll, north of goggin won with slant walk in second.
Right, that’s a key assumption I didn’t think needed outlined. Right above if the sun keeps shining so the earth doesn’t freeze and we all die.
I would like to point out something. The so called slant walk location is deliberately picked to attempt to influence thinking. It is kind of dishonest. The administrations proposal Does Not Replace slant walk, nor would the new arena be located on slantwalk. A fair way of describing that location is Across from Lewis Place.
We had to face dishonesty in our state elections because of the current Secretary of State, at least on Miami Hawktalk we could properly describe the spots we were voting for.
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At the risk of incurring Phil and Dick’s ire, I don’t believe anyone is saying slant walk will be gone. Rather “slant walk” is being used as a descriptor for the general locale and geographic proximity of where the arena would be. I don’t believe there is any dishonestly by anyone on this board or those critical of that site location. Many are concerned, and forgive me for saying, rightly so, of the destruction of campus aesthetics. But no one is saying “oh hell yeah, they are going to rip up all of slant walk”. So we are all clear and there are no further claims of “dishonesty “ we are talking about some of, all, of or some portion of the AREA covered by Stroh Center in this mock up.
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People who have read this entire thread would certainly know what they were voting on. The same in our recent election. However, since that election I have talked with a couple of people who were fooled by the labeling of Issue 1 and voted against what they wanted to vote for. Just change it to a proper label of the location so that anyone who votes without reading the thread knows what they are voting for. If not, the survey would be attempting to influence the results.
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Wait…are we allowed to talk politics now?
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This has been University politics since Heppy brought it up. It is faculty vs Athletics.
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He was using the uncertainty around issue 1 as an example of the uncertainty we see here with regard to the proposed Slant Walk adjacent location.
We’re not discussing the merits, or lack thereof, of Issue 1
He catfished us all into discussing politics!
Hoppy you scamp!!!
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