The Elon arena is set across from the main part of the academic campus - not on it - and is part of an athletic cluster. That is one thing that is nice about Millett.
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This getting pulled into the For Love. For Honor. campaign is a huge win. As critical as I am of how the athletic department fundraises, the University side of fundraising has things down to a science. As of July, the campaign had raised over $700m of a $1b goal.
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There are a lot of differring opinions here ( nothing surprising about that), but from what I heard, the decisions about where the building will be built ( if it happens) has already been made. The athletic administration is all for it, The President of the University wants it there, the Board of Trustees wants it there, and the major Donor wants it there.
What we would be building would be nothing like Millett size wise. It might be more the size of BG’s new basketball Arena. There is plenty of room in that location to build this facility ( think of a modern attractive red brick facility ) and still save some of trees and open space and not be right on top of slant walk so not really effecting it.
They were a little non committal about what would happen to Millett but said there were no plans for taking it down. So probably the ticket office and Athletic adminstration would still be housed there and many of it’s current uses would continue.
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Push Millett up to the street, get rid of the ridiculous runway.
It was a nice shortcut to my East Quad dorm, but what’s the point of Cook Field? I remember watching freshman football games there, but there is no freshmen football team anymore. Move any intramurals to Western.
Frankly, I’d be thrilled with just about any new facility anywhere.
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Where on Western? Or are you talking about that field down the road as you head to the stables?
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There’s also the avenue of applying for the state’s biennial capital appropriations bill to cover a substantial amount. Given the age of Millett, I don’t think it would be a stretch for the state to kick in.
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The proximity to Goggin for the Phillips/Williams location makes me wonder if the banquet area and food service at Goggin could be used pre-game for bball. A very short walk from one to the other. Cover the sidewalk from Goggin to the new facility. Maybe even put in a heating system to avoid snow/ice on the sidewalk.By doing so, it would add more opportunities to cater to boosters and avoid having to make a similar facility at the new arena, thus reducing the cost and the footprint. Certainly game time conflicts would have to be taken into consideration.
Absolutely agree with Tom. We need to bring it closer to campus. Plenty of space there and parking won’t be an issue.
Keeping Millett doesn’t make a ton of sense if part of the justification of the new arena is to avoid the $80 million in needed renovations. Unless that cost is for upgrades and not just to extend the life of the facility.
If the new facility is smaller which would be ideal for basketball it would not have enough capacity to host the commencements that are currently in Millett.
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Thinking how great it would (will) be to have actual large groups of people gathering in front of and around a campus arena, making noise - an actual hubbub! As compared to the cold and lonely stragglers trekking up to the front of Millett, wondering what’s up with the dim blue lights.
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Some more information from the Provost. These are verbatim notes from a Senate member forwarded to me and shared with many. My personal comments/opinions are inside brackets [ ]
- University came out [publicly] with info about an arena and hotel on Friday.
- it’s very early phases of these discussions; hotel part has been going on for awhile
- Reason [for coming out publicly] was to mitigate rumors that might be spreading about basketball arena going up uptown [i.e., to avoid making some professors even angrier].
- Why a new basketball arena: Millett has $83M in deferred maintenance. To bring that building up to functional capacity, that’s what it would cost. “High FCI.” Half CCA buildings have such high FCI that they’re in decay. we have to do something and idea was that to get donors interested — they’re less interested in fix up old building and more in new building
- the idea is to centrally locate it; much more central to try to invigorate the Oxford community. The old football stadium was where Pearson is.
- It’s early in these talks. There’s “no donor that’s been announced” David Creamer is going to meet with Campus Planing committee and he will explain to them what is happening. [Serious discussions with the donor have already started]
- There is a process with these things, the university doesn’t share details until they are far enough along in the process, have investigated funding etc.; you can agree or not agree with this process. Once the process is far enough along, then they involve the Campus Planning Committee. [I for once learned about all of this on Thursday evening]
- Hotel — idea would be a university-affiliated hotel (they pay us) with a nice restaurant — the folks [hoteliers?] who want to do it want it more central. NW corner of Cook Field is what the hotel would love.
There is more information on the donor and further money, but that isn’t public information yet.
EDIT: Correcting my previous comment on Marcum: It will only be part of FSB IF the new hotel is indeed built.
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I’m not buying in until dodo comments. This is all part of plan and he is at the heart of it.
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So in the scenario where Millett is no more, would that space be used for more football parking?
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Prof-thank you for these important, and factual updates. Much better than rank speculation. Very much appreciated!
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If the arena is on Cook Field I’d imagine they’d need to replace the green space by putting more green space where Millett is?
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That would be an interesting odd change. Lets replace a place that all students use for recreation and move it to a place that is apparently too far for students to get too.
Anyway I am just happy that we might build a new arena. I like Millet more than most but it is 55 years old
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It’s too bad the arena needs so much maintenance. Gutting Millett and making it modern would be awesome. 5/3 arena in Cincinnati, is a prototype for how to turn a terrible old arena into something really cool
Toledo did a nice job renovating Savage Hall.
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Cook Field isn’t it the last big green space on campus? At least the last big one available for rec sports???
To put an f’in hotel there is horrific. Besides that it was site of athletic glories! (Start playing Bruce…“Glory Days”. And yea…they’ve passed me by!!!) F/B for one walk on year and track/discus. Lots of Love & Honor moments there.
Seriously, the last big chunk of unused land. Keep it open so when folks drive into Oxford and the campus they see some actual green space and students have someplace to play.
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I also thought some of Cook Field’s “untouchableness” came from troops being mustered there for (maybe) the Civil War and our country’s other wars.