New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Season

[Biddco]

Wow, almost exactly the same seating arrangement as Amsoil Arena for UMD. Even the students are in the same place (the dark gray area on the Amsoil diagram is the student sectionhttp://www.decc.org/cms/img/AMSOILseating_sm.jpg

The renderings looked exactly the same too. I wonder if the same architecture firm did the designs for both arenas

[Red Cows]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

The renderings looked exactly the same too. I wonder if the same architecture firm did the designs for both arenas

HDR, which is headquartered here in Omaha, is the architect:

http://www.hdrinc.com/portfolio/uno-arena

I know school officials looked at other buildings for ideas for ours. It was specifically mentioned in the paper here that they looked at the Ralph, for example.

Mike Kemp, our former Head Coach and now our assistant AD has been heavily involved in the design aspects and construction of the new arena.

When my wife and I made our trip to Duluth and Amsoil Arena, right after it opened, to see UNO and UMD's season ending series in 2011, we ran into Coach Kemp in the Curling Club prior to the Saturday night game. We didn't get a chance to speak to him as it seemed he was just passing through. He walked in one end and walked out the other. We all wondered what he might be doing there, on the road, with the team. The 5 of us in our party sort of surmised that he was there for the same reasons we were, to see UNO play AND see your new arena. Since our new building was very on the radar even then, he may have done some list making while walking around Amsoil that weekend.

[Red Cows]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

Here is the latest video from the school, detailing the construction progress. This was released on October 3rd, so this was filmed on or before that date:

http://www.omavs.com/mediaPortal/pla...400&id=3449864

Now that this is starting to look like something, and since the arena would seem to have sort of an odd shape, let me remind everyone that this is a dual rink facility and the rinks are perpendicular to one another:

http://dataomaha.com/media/sliderphotos/arenauno.JPG

Here is sort of an irony in our new arena story.

At the inception of UNO's program in 1997, the school originally was to play in Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum located at the site of the famous Omaha horse track of the same name. After the announcement of the program's start-up, so many season tickets were sold (over 6,000) that the Omaha City Council voted to pay for and install ice making equipment in the Omaha Civic Auditorium and allow UNO to play there as that facility seated 8,314 for hockey as opposed to the Coliseum, which had a hockey capacity at it's end of about 6,200.

The race track and Coliseum have since been torn down, in 2005.

UNO's new arena is walking distance, just a few blocks, from the former site of Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum. Things have come full circle.

[Biddco]

HDR, which is headquartered here in Omaha, is the architect:

http://www.hdrinc.com/portfolio/uno-arena

I know school officials looked at other buildings for ideas for ours. It was specifically mentioned in the paper here that they looked at the Ralph, for example.

Mike Kemp, our former Head Coach and now our assistant AD has been heavily involved in the design aspects and construction of the new arena.

When my wife and I made our trip to Duluth and Amsoil Arena, right after it opened, to see UNO and UMD's season ending series in 2011, we ran into Coach Kemp in the Curling Club prior to the Saturday night game. We didn't get a chance to speak to him as it seemed he was just passing through. He walked in one end and walked out the other. We all wondered what he might be doing there, on the road, with the team. The 5 of us in our party sort of surmised that he was there for the same reasons we were, to see UNO play AND see your new arena. Since our new building was very on the radar even then, he may have done some list making while walking around Amsoil that weekend.

Ha nice. My wife used to work for HDR as well.

[Red Cows]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

This speaks for itself:

http://vimeo.com/108291868

[Critical Thinker]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

This speaks for itself:

http://vimeo.com/108291868

Very cool. As an architecture major, I love watching these new college rinks come up. It's also nice to see a school move their rink onto campus where it belongs.

[MAVFANJEFF]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

Does anyone know the details of Ryan Massa being called for roughing?

[Red Cows]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

It's a beautiful sunny day here and I thought it might be a good time to repost the link to the web cam (hi-def) feed from the construction site, particularly since jaw-dropping progress has been made on the arena in the last 30 days or so:

http://www.truelook.com/clients/tetrad-unoarena/?full

You can control the camera, by the way.

The intention is to have the building completely enclosed by the end of December.

[Red Cows]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

Facts and figures about the new arena project from the school's own web site:

http://www.unomaha.edu/athletics/arena.php

This was recently updated.

Still no word on a name or naming rights. I know it is being negotiated. With whom, I don't know. More on that and the finances:

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/uno-...c53255a87.html

Bear in mind when reading this article that UNO is part of the same state university system as the University of Nebraska is. The NU Foundation, mentioned in the article, which is the privately owned, non-profit fundraising arm for the University and, by extension, UNO, sits on a war chest of 2 billion dollars according to the foundation's most recent annual report, and is an organization that has 250 full time employees and whose offices cover a city block in downtown Lincoln, NE.

Heritage Services of Omaha, also mentioned in the article, is an equally deep-pocketed, heavy-hitter, privately owned fund raising/philanthropic organization, the founder and Chairman of which is Walter Scott, Jr., who is the CEO of Kiewit Construction, which is one of the 5 Fortune 500 companies HQ'ed in Omaha and who is one of, if not the largest construction company in the world:

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/heri...1fc1ad1cd.html

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

Bear in mind when reading this article that UNO is part of the same state university system as the University of Nebraska is. The NU Foundation, mentioned in the article, which is the privately owned, non-profit fundraising arm for the University and, by extension, UNO, sits on a war chest of 2 billion dollars according to the foundation's most recent annual report, and is an organization that has 250 full time employees and whose offices cover a city block in downtown Lincoln, NE.

I wish you the best on this, so don't get me wrong, but from one red-headed stepchild state university to another, I'd advise you to not count on getting too much of that money. As in, essentially none. And as someone who lives in the hinterlands of the state (i.e., not Lincoln and not Omaha), I can tell you that there rarely is any support out here for any money to go to anything university related other than the Ag school and Big Red athletics.

Heritage, Kiewit, Buffet, et. al.,- Fine and dandy. I hope you can talk them into it. The NU Foundation? Good luck.

[Kdaddy1968]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

A 7,500 seat rink in this situation is too small. I'll go to my grave saying so. This was a horrendously near-sighted and hasty decision that is going to haunt this program in the years to come. I am far from being the only UNO fan that feels this way, either:

http://huskermike.blogspot.com/2013/...s-for-new.html

There are some incorrect assertions here (this post is over a year old), but, you get the idea.

Maintenance and operational costs climb as you get bigger. It's like flying a jet that is too big on a route. Get the capacity wrong and you take a money making route and end up with a loser. Better to go a bit too small than too big.

[Red Cows]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

Maintenance and operational costs climb as you get bigger. It's like flying a jet that is too big on a route. Get the capacity wrong and you take a money making route and end up with a loser. Better to go a bit too small than too big.

Trust me, there is plenty of sentiment here on this side of the ledger as well.

The UNO fan base here is very, very fractionated about this. There are some fans here that think the school shouldn't have done this at all. Every person that I have heard say as much is looking at the expense side of things when saying this, I might add.

I am happy that we are getting our own arena, that the school will have revenue streams from sources it has never heretofore had as a result, that not having one will no longer be used as a recruiting tool against us, and that this is another (big) step on the road to UNO winning a national championship, something that was basically "promised" when the very first puck dropped in 1997. After all, it's the object of the exercise.

As much as I dislike the arena size, I am happy we are getting one as opposed to none at all.

You are correct about the dollars. There are many people here that are skeptical about the revenue projections and this is a dual rink facility.

I think UNO is sleeping giant in college hockey (and, I am positive that Coach Blais thinks so, too), and I don't want to limit ourselves or our program because we were so hasty to get an arena built that we shortsightedly sold ourselves short and aimed too low in our expectations.

No disrespect to any other schools or the cities they are located in, but, this isn't Duluth, St. Cloud, Kalamazoo, Grand Forks, or, Oxford, all of which have less than 100,000 inhabitants. Neither is it Colorado Springs, a bedroom community of Denver that Omaha is far bigger than, nor is it Denver, which is a "major league" city with professional competition for sports dollars that does not exist in Omaha. Omaha is the home to five Fortune 500 companies, and the home of five more companies in the Fortune 1000. In a city with a metro population of 875,000 or so.

From 2005 through 2007, we had UNO playing here in Omaha, the Omaha Lancers, and for those 3 seasons, the Omaha Knights of the AHA. There were a couple occasions where all 3 teams were playing at home on a given weekend night here where, between the 3 venues involved, and there was more than 25,000 people in attendance at these various hockey games here in Omaha. That is a lot of "pent up" hockey interest.

UNO has been in the top 10 in NCAA attendance every year of the program's existence and in most of those seasons, its been in the top 5. Two of those seasons, UNO was an independent, and, after that, a middling CCHA team for most of it's existence thereafter.

If anybody reading this doesn't agree with the "sleeping giant" moniker I gave the program, then explain to me how we are a charter member of the college hockey conference that is widely considered to be the SEC of College Hockey, despite being a program with almost zero hockey legacy. Dean Blais has street cred but I don't believe he has THAT much street cred.

[The Zlax45]

Trust me, there is plenty of sentiment here on this side of the ledger as well.

The UNO fan base here is very, very fractionated about this. There are some fans here that think the school shouldn't have done this at all. Every person that I have heard say as much is looking at the expense side of things when saying this, I might add.

I am happy that we are getting our own arena, that the school will have revenue streams from sources it has never heretofore had as a result, that not having one will no longer be used as a recruiting tool against us, and that this is another (big) step on the road to UNO winning a national championship, something that was basically "promised" when the very first puck dropped in 1997. After all, it's the object of the exercise.

As much as I dislike the arena size, I am happy we are getting one as opposed to none at all.

You are correct about the dollars. There are many people here that are skeptical about the revenue projections and this is a dual rink facility.

I think UNO is sleeping giant in college hockey (and, I am positive that Coach Blais thinks so, too), and I don't want to limit ourselves or our program because we were so hasty to get an arena built that we shortsightedly sold ourselves short and aimed too low in our expectations.

No disrespect to any other schools or the cities they are located in, but, this isn't Duluth, St. Cloud, Kalamazoo, Grand Forks, or, Oxford, all of which have less than 100,000 inhabitants. Neither is it Colorado Springs, a bedroom community of Denver that Omaha is far bigger than, nor is it Denver, which is a "major league" city with professional competition for sports dollars that does not exist in Omaha. Omaha is the home to five Fortune 500 companies, and the home of five more companies in the Fortune 1000. In a city with a metro population of 875,000 or so.

From 2005 through 2007, we had UNO playing here in Omaha, the Omaha Lancers, and for those 3 seasons, the Omaha Knights of the AHA. There were a couple occasions where all 3 teams were playing at home on a given weekend night here where, between the 3 venues involved, and there was more than 25,000 people in attendance at these various hockey games here in Omaha. That is a lot of "pent up" hockey interest.

UNO has been in the top 10 in NCAA attendance every year of the program's existence and in most of those seasons, its been in the top 5. Two of those seasons, UNO was an independent, and, after that, a middling CCHA team for most of it's existence thereafter.

If anybody reading this doesn't agree with the "sleeping giant" moniker I gave the program, then explain to me how we are a charter member of the college hockey conference that is widely considered to be the SEC of College Hockey, despite being a program with almost zero hockey legacy. Dean Blais has street cred but I don't believe he has THAT much street cred.

Been to Omaha on business plenty and the city is marginal at best...

[Red Cows]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

Been to Omaha on business plenty and the city is marginal at best...

I have no idea what relevance that statement, true or not, has to this discourse.

[MAVFANJEFF]

Re: New UNO Arena Construction Thread---Facility to open for the start of '15-'16 Sea

Anyone who thinks building our own arena was a mistake must have slammed their head in a car door. We badly needed to get out from under the mecca thumb. But an alternative would have been to build a bigger arena in Ralston and call it home. With the practice rink there UNO would never have to go far for practice. I also think the football field should have been converted to a baseball stadium. Creighton has the soccer fan base locked up. But at least the athletic dept isn't bleeding anymore.