New Arena

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JasonS said:
If US Bank Arena's owner put in the money to renovate the arena (and yes, it can be done), don't you think it would be worth moving down there for 10 years while the University gathered funds to be able to build an on campus arena that is brand new and state of the art? Wouldn't that be a better option than staying at 5/3rd arena for 10 years? Look, the administration is not going to do something that hurts the program so if it is determined that the best thing for the program is to move down to US Bank after renovations are completed, I am all for it. I just want the program to move forward and I trust that President Ono will at least ask Mick about his thoughts before a decision is made.
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This. Whenever this topic comes up, people act like the University is just flipping a coin and don't realize what they are doing. I'm sure they are evaluating every single aspect on both sides and will choose the option that suits the program best.
 
JasonS said:
If US Bank Arena's owner put in the money to renovate the arena (and yes, it can be done), don't you think it would be worth moving down there for 10 years while the University gathered funds to be able to build an on campus arena that is brand new and state of the art? Wouldn't that be a better option than staying at 5/3rd arena for 10 years? Look, the administration is not going to do something that hurts the program so if it is determined that the best thing for the program is to move down to US Bank after renovations are completed, I am all for it. I just want the program to move forward and I trust that President Ono will at least ask Mick about his thoughts before a decision is made.
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The problem with getting US Bank updated is that it is privately owned, thus there is not a ready supply of money from we the people like was available for the two stadiums. In Columbus this was solved by having Franklin County and the City of Columbus combine to purchase Nationwide arena and upgrade it using public money. In that case they identified a source of revenue to pay back the loans, specifically casino money. Such an idea would not work here for several reasons. First, you still have a county in debt from the building of the two stadiums and the contractual obligations to make improvements there. Second, such a source of public money is not likely to materialize since casino and other revenues here are already spoken for. Third, there is a general aversion to any large scale public projects here (see streetcar, but there are many other examples) and the funds just don't seem likely to appear. Cleveland did it by using a "sin tax", but in Cleveland the option of crossing the river to evade such taxes does not exist so that would not generate enough revenue either. Another option is to have UC kick in a major part of the cost of renovation, but if they had the money I believe 5/3 would be the priority.

To sum up, the owner of the arena says it will cost at least 100 million to update/upgrade, but that is only a rough guess and probably way under, and the owner is not willing to put up the money. Public funds to purchase and operate the arena are not available, and even if someone put forth a proposal it would probably end up on the ballot before the voters after years of fighting and lawsuits.

Everybody wants to upgrade the arena but nobody wants to pay for it. The place is a dump and was when it first opened. I went to a lot of games there and I sure as hell never want to do that again.
 
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ccmbearcat said:
The problem with getting US Bank updated is that it is privately owned, thus there is not a ready supply of money from we the people like was available for the two stadiums. In Columbus this was solved by having Franklin County and the City of Columbus combine to purchase Nationwide arena and upgrade it using public money. In that case they identified a source of revenue to pay back the loans, specifically casino money. Such an idea would not work here for several reasons. First, you still have a county in debt from the building of the two stadiums and the contractual obligations to make improvements there. Second, such a source of public money is not likely to materialize since casino and other revenues here are already spoken for. Third, there is a general aversion to any large scale public projects here (see streetcar, but there are many other examples) and the funds just don't seem likely to appear. Cleveland did it by using a "sin tax", but in Cleveland the option of crossing the river to evade such taxes does not exist so that would not generate enough revenue either. Another option is to have UC kick in a major part of the cost of renovation, but if they had the money I believe 5/3 would be the priority.

To sum up, the owner of the arena says it will cost at least 100 million to update/upgrade, but that is only a rough guess and probably way under, and the owner is not willing to put up the money. Public funds to purchase and operate the arena are not available, and even if someone put forth a proposal it would probably end up on the ballot before the voters after years of fighting and lawsuits.

Everybody wants to upgrade the arena but nobody wants to pay for it. The place is a dump and was when it first opened. I went to a lot of games there and I sure as hell never want to do that again.
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This is a ploy to get additional funding from the city/county. You could build a new arena for practically $100 Million. The owner is trying to limit the amount of money he has to put into the arena and can you blame him?
 
To put this into perspective, the Cintas Center was built for 63 million and that includes the practice facility that is connected to it. I say we build an on campus arena that cost around 100 million. I realize that we don't have the money right now but if they announce something I guarantee that people that are not donors right now would donate. In order to make money you have to spend money, I'm fine if we go into a little debt because in the long run we will easily get that money back.
 
BearcatNation54 said:
To put this into perspective, the Cintas Center was built for 63 million and that includes the practice facility that is connected to it. I say we build an on campus arena that cost around 100 million. I realize that we don't have the money right now but if they announce something I guarantee that people that are not donors right now would donate. In order to make money you have to spend money, I'm fine if we go into a little debt because in the long run we will easily get that money back.
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Yes, but Xavier isn't putting lots of money into a football program either. You don't want to have 2 huge projects going on at once, that is a recipe for disaster. I think Babcock decided to focus on football because he believed that it was our best chance to get into a better conference. Basketball is important and I actually like our basketball program better than the football program, but football is a much bigger money maker than basketball.
 
JumpinJack5 said:
Yes, but Xavier isn't putting lots of money into a football program either. You don't want to have 2 huge projects going on at once, that is a recipe for disaster. I think Babcock decided to focus on football because he believed that it was our best chance to get into a better conference. Basketball is important and I actually like our basketball program better than the football program, but football is a much bigger money maker than basketball.
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I totally agree about not having two projects going on at the same time, if it were up to me we would make an announcement this spring or summer about the plan to build an arena to start fundraising then in 2015 or 2016 start knocking down 5/3rd and building a new arena
 
BearcatNation54 said:
I totally agree about not having two projects going on at the same time, if it were up to me we would make an announcement this spring or summer about the plan to build an arena to start fundraising then in 2015 or 2016 start knocking down 5/3rd and building a new arena
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Yeah, in a perfect world, I agree.
 
BearcatNation54 said:
He was there for one game, what outsiders don't realize is that nobody comes to the early games in the season, they only come for the "big games".
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Right, and it would be a lot worse if they were playing in that dungeon downtown. The atmosphere he describes never existed in the downtown arena in any games. About the closest I remember is the night Roger McClendon scored about 30 and we beat Louisville. But that atmosphere did not come close to approaching the atmosphere at 5/3 in the big games.
 
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ccmbearcat said:
Right, and it would be a lot worse if they were playing in that dungeon downtown. The atmosphere he describes never existed in the downtown arena in any games. About the closest I remember is the night Roger McClendon scored about 30 and we beat Louisville. But that atmosphere did not come close to approaching the atmosphere at 5/3 in the big games.
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I totally agree with you on that. I would much rather play at 5/3rd than US Bank as is.
 
JasonS said:
This is a ploy to get additional funding from the city/county. You could build a new arena for practically $100 Million. The owner is trying to limit the amount of money he has to put into the arena and can you blame him?
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I think everything put in the media has been a ploy by them to try to entice UC to go down there. I think they expect UC to pony some money up for it. I don't see that happening. And they came to the wrong city to try and get public funding. It will take us five years to decide/redecide/undecide/put it to a vote/pull the plug/recommit/uncommit/vote again/hold public forums/vote in a new council and then move forward.
 
david aka the TYZ said:
I think everything put in the media has been a ploy by them to try to entice UC to go down there. I think they expect UC to pony some money up for it. I don't see that happening. And they came to the wrong city to try and get public funding. It will take us five years to decide/redecide/undecide/put it to a vote/pull the plug/recommit/uncommit/vote again/hold public forums/vote in a new council and then move forward.
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I agree. I don't see UC putting money into US Bank Arena nor should they.
 
Cliff Peale ‏@cliffpeale
I'M HEARING from big @uofcincy donors pushing 4 UC to play at renovated US Bank Arena. We know @CoachCroninUC likes it. @Enquirer @PrezOno
 
Good to hear. As long as the arena looks and feels like a UC arena I am fine with this. Especially if it increases the revenue.
 
Bearcat_NTS said:
Good to hear. As long as the arena looks and feels like a UC arena I am fine with this. Especially if it increases the revenue.
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I agree. Has anyone been to the YUM center? Does it look and feel like a L'ville arena (doesn't the city own it?). I would want the same as far as it feeling like the Cat's arena but would want the venue to be able to attract better concerts, NCAA tourney games, and other events.
 

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