Any 'new' news on the practice facility?

[Blakeon18]

Last I heard it was to open in April....that still a realistic target?

Maybe just in time for the visits of Asia Durr and Katie Samuelson...et al?

 

[DaddyChoc]

last I heard things got shut down for a moment due to a few contractors with illegal workers

 

[Icebear]

New subcontractors were quickly hired and the work continues.

 

[HGN]

Daddy Choc, The illegal workers I had heard about as well. But they also said that the General Contractor had brought in new subcontractors to fill in so that no time was lost.

I hope the facility is finished on time for the Asia Durr , Kalani Brown , and Katie Lou Samuelson visit as well. What a great recruiting tool it should be. I don't believe anyone else has such an impressive practice facility as this.

LET'S GO CONTRACTOR'S...LET'S GO!!

 

[LIUCHusky]

Last I heard it was to open in April....that still a realistic target?

Maybe just in time for the visits of Asia Durr and Katie Samuelson...et al?

From what I have heard it is expected to be more like a June completion.

 

[UcMiami]

Regardless of completion date it should still be pretty impressive by the end of April - the last compile of months on most construction jobs are spent on paint and light fixtures and furnishings - the space and the feel should be pretty obvious well before.

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

I wish the building committee had a little fore-thought and built a NEW Gampel on the FB field and transformed the present Gampel into the training facility! They could have had seating for 15,000 fans all real seats, no bleacher seats! An Arena like the PSU Bryce Jordan Center, Mohegan Sun Arena (5,000 more seats), L'ville KFC YUM Center, Pittsburgh Peterson Events Center, and others of that type! No more XL Center, all on campus games! It's ridiculous to have over a 1/4 bleacher seats in an arena for the best program in WCBB! And put your student seating the first 6 rows around the court, like DUKE does, for example, instead of up in a end zone area! Make Gampel a snake pit to play in!
Any Corporate seats that will not be used has to be turned back to UCONN to be given to Students on game day!
When Warde Manuel became DA his first public statement that he promised to have ALL seat backs in Gampel! He dropped that when he realized he'd lose 1500 to 2000 seats! The $ talks and Fan Comfort walks!
No other University in the USA disrespects their season ticket holders like UCONN does!

 

[DaddyChoc]

they're bacccccccccccck

 

[arty155]

I wish the building committee had a little fore-thought and built a NEW Gampel on the FB field and transformed the present Gampel into the training facility! They could have had seating for 15,000 fans all real seats, no bleacher seats! An Arena like the PSU Bryce Jordan Center, Mohegan Sun Arena (5,000 more seats), L'ville KFC YUM Center,.. $ talks...

- My impression is, the limitation of this terrific design never seemed to be “fore-thought,” but their commitment to realistically stay within their $32M budget. Does your concept do that? If not, how long would you have had us delay, in the hope of raising more funds,... someday,... maybe?

- The first hurdle toward your UConn-KFC YUM Center-concept (I’m with you all the way on the TV spectacle of Duke-like student seating) might be the basis of cost estimate (KFC YUM was $238M... maybe we could save $ by installing a Dairy Bar, instead of a Bourbon Bar), and the second your proposed funding source. I’m afraid any hope to “plan” to do it for just $32M, however, requires somehow reuniting the budget team who planned Boston’s Big Dig.

 

[thatguyed]

I've read the Louie's are losing a fortune on Yum.

 

[Icebear]

Not sure how Gampel would have served as a practice facility if the goal was two complete facilities serving men and women.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Gampel for all its warts and all still has one thing that money can't buy and the other fancy arenas don't have: championship banners.

 

[UcMiami]

The issue with Uconn is the campus is a small town campus. It is not a city campus nor even a large town campus. Access to campus is bad, not terrible but not great and traffic/parking for a 10,000 seat facility is a pain - add 50% more and it will be 100% worse. So what ever facility they might build on campus is not likely to increase capacity, nor is it going to be able to genera additional revenue as a multi-purpose venue. And having food courts or retail outlets is a non-starter because there will be no walk-thru traffic on non-event days.
There is a reason the football stadium is not on campus and that Uconn BB plays at off campus facilities. If they were to upgrade significantly it would probably be in Hartford or Manchester which definitely creates a different vibe for students. And spending a boat load on Gampel is what my old design teacher used to call 'tying a ribbon on an udder'. The process of trying to upgrade even by taking out tons of concrete just to add chair backs would be very expensive, and you would still have an old, dated facility. It really is a 'tear-down' and rebuild and that sends the costs way up. And as everyone says - football drives the bus and if B1G is really a possibility, the money that would be required to upgrade the football stadium to B1G minimums will take all the financial resources available.

 

[meyers7]

The issue with Uconn is the campus is a small town campus. It is not a city campus nor even a large town campus. Access to campus is bad, not terrible but not great and traffic/parking for a 10,000 seat facility is a pain - add 50% more and it will be 100% worse. So what ever facility they might build on campus is not likely to increase capacity, nor is it going to be able to genera additional revenue as a multi-purpose venue. And having food courts or retail outlets is a non-starter because there will be no walk-thru traffic on non-event days.
There is a reason the football stadium is not on campus and that Uconn BB plays at off campus facilities. If they were to upgrade significantly it would probably be in Hartford or Manchester which definitely creates a different vibe for students. And spending a boat load on Gampel is what my old design teacher used to call 'tying a ribbon on an udder'. The process of trying to upgrade even by taking out tons of concrete just to add chair backs would be very expensive, and you would still have an old, dated facility. It really is a 'tear-down' and rebuild and that sends the costs way up. And as everyone says - football drives the bus and if B1G is really a possibility, the money that would be required to upgrade the football stadium to B1G minimums will take all the financial resources available.

Good points.

 

[EricLA]

The issue with Uconn is the campus is a small town campus. It is not a city campus nor even a large town campus. Access to campus is bad, not terrible but not great and traffic/parking for a 10,000 seat facility is a pain - add 50% more and it will be 100% worse. So what ever facility they might build on campus is not likely to increase capacity, nor is it going to be able to genera additional revenue as a multi-purpose venue. And having food courts or retail outlets is a non-starter because there will be no walk-thru traffic on non-event days.
There is a reason the football stadium is not on campus and that Uconn BB plays at off campus facilities. If they were to upgrade significantly it would probably be in Hartford or Manchester which definitely creates a different vibe for students. And spending a boat load on Gampel is what my old design teacher used to call 'tying a ribbon on an udder'. The process of trying to upgrade even by taking out tons of concrete just to add chair backs would be very expensive, and you would still have an old, dated facility. It really is a 'tear-down' and rebuild and that sends the costs way up. And as everyone says - football drives the bus and if B1G is really a possibility, the money that would be required to upgrade the football stadium to B1G minimums will take all the financial resources available.

Have to admit those are great points - and I agree it's unlikely that Gampel will ever be torn down and rebuilt. I also agree that the University will likely put most, or all, of it's resources in upgrading the football facility. IIRC, the facility was designed to add 10-15,000 seats fairly easily, and maybe with the new HC and hopefully new direction of the FB program, that will come sooner rather than later.

BUT for the time being, I think at the very least, an easy fix would be to put nice cushions on the concrete benches - I can't imagine that it would cost any more than say $25,000 to make those "seats" way more comfortable.

 

[UcMiami]

Have to admit those are great points - and I agree it's unlikely that Gampel will ever be torn down and rebuilt. I also agree that the University will likely put most, or all, of it's resources in upgrading the football facility. IIRC, the facility was designed to add 10-15,000 seats fairly easily, and maybe with the new HC and hopefully new direction of the FB program, that will come sooner rather than later.

BUT for the time being, I think at the very least, an easy fix would be to put nice cushions on the concrete benches - I can't imagine that it would cost any more than say $25,000 to make those "seats" way more comfortable.

Good point - a cushion upgrade would be incredibly easy and quite cost efficient. Most people want chair backs and that is much more complicated because in order to accommodate any current design they would probably need to take 4-6" of concrete off of each seating level.

 

[DaddyChoc]

BTW Mohegan Sun arena seating are horrible... but they do have backs (2nd time in the arena a few Saturdays back)

 

[HGN]

I haven't heard the latest on the new practice facility but I hope its still on schedule to be completed in the Spring. Or at the latest , early summer.

 

[Fishy]

1) Gampel was built on the small side so that UConn would continue to have to use the Civic Center - it was a political decision, not a concession to traffic. It should have been 15,000 seats, but when it opened, it was 8,241.

2) Seat backs mean fewer seats.

3) The practice facility is on schedule to open soon - that stop-work order was for one subcontractor and did not really slow anything.

4) I don't see Gampel being replaced any time soon. It's not that UConn would use the funds to upgrade the football facility - UConn is only a tenant there as that property is owned by the state.

We have an immediate need of a hockey facility due to the upgrade to Hockey East. After that, baseball and soccer need serious upgrades to their facilities. And unfortunately, we're just not going to need 15,000 seats for games against Tulsa and East Carolina.

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

Not sure how Gampel would have served as a practice facility if the goal was two complete facilities serving men and women.

UCONN would have had to transform Gampel to whatever they are doing with the training facility! It couldn't be used as it now is set up! But a new Gampel really is a necessity now, have you seen the condition of the roof?

 

[Icebear]

UCONN would have had to transform Gampel to whatever they are doing with the training facility! It couldn't be used as it now is set up! But a new Gampel really is a necessity now, have you seen the condition of the roof?

There is not enough room where Gampel is located to do that.