There is a piece of land called The Separatist Tract that goes south from where Freitas and Morrone stadium are now towards South Eagleville Rd. It is owned by UConn and can easily be used to make a parking facility for the ice arena, baseball field, softball field, soccer stadium and Gampel.
That's a good chunk of land. Just throwing this out there, but what about keeping the current Freitas as a practice facility and use the Separatist tract for a new arena and parking? Or is that the idea?
That to me would be the ideal thing...take that facility, fold it into a new facility upgrading the ice making surface and machinery then only putting limited seating on one side...use that for public skating, intramurals, and youth hockey, practice facility (giving both teams equal practice time splitting time on main ice surface and practice surface) and have the main arena area with team facilities.
Exactly!!!! More I think about it the more I would like to see something like they introduced in the drawings about a year ago...that added to a practice rink that is Freitas now will be perfect. Still allows them to play in Hartford while not being held hostage to date availability
If they end up closing off Hillside to vehicle traffic like I have heard that will be a necessity.
That's possible, though the parking lot area in and of itself is quite large. If they literally had the bounds of the parking lot to work with, an arena could fit there with some finagling. That said, just knocking down Freitas, and taking that land plus some of the I Lot land and make that the hockey facility with an adjacent parking garage for use by the whole complex back there and as basketball overflow.
There is only one P5 conference that might find it attractive. Right?
I feel like the hesitation to address the hockey arena is related to the hope that the B1G comes calling.
I can't imagine how the B1G would prefer UConn playing in XL. A brand new on campus facility the program has to itself would be far more appealing to the B1G.
Exactly, so better to hold off on any Freitas renovation work. There are enough athletic facility upgrades in the short term to show our continued commitment to being an elite AD. HE is fine with us playing in the XL center for now.
Oh, I get your point now I thought you were saying don't build a new arena on campus until the B1G comes calling. Totally agree, this 2,500 seat Band-Aid is a terrible idea from a B1G perspective as well.
Long overdue. My question is to anybody who may know, the article in the Courant states $46M for 3 stadiums, baseball, softball and soccer. $25M of which was donated and the remaining from ticket surcharges. They will start charging $2/ ticket surcharge for hockey tickets. How long before the hockey arena is started, and what happens if an arena isn't built? Are the surcharges earmarked for their specific sport/facility or is it lumped into a general stadia account. My concern is being charged a surcharge and never seeing an arena.
