Jeff Jacobs article in control of XL & the RENT...

[coachcap]

Interesting how he ties the sweepstakes winner as critical to UConn's future in Conference Realignment. Also thought that the idea of closing Gampel for a few seasons to expand it for both Hoops & Hockey was worth noting.http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-men/hc-jacobs-column-0204-20130203,0,5955626.column

 

[Adios]

Gampel absolutely has to be renovated. Look at how fancy other collegiate arenas are. If the B1G takes us in and we play B1G hockey, the place will be insane for hockey games.

 

[upstater]

Every retrofit I've seen for hockey has ended in the conclusion that a new facility is cheaper.

 

[Adios]

Every retrofit I've seen for hockey has ended in the conclusion that a new facility is cheaper.

Anyone with common sense knows that is the case. But Gampel should still be renovated for basketball. We could use some brickwork. Same with the Rent. Needs some more added to it. Definitely could needs a new screen.

 

[Waquoit]

Also thought that the idea of closing Gampel for a few seasons to expand it for both Hoops & Hockey was worth noting.

Hockey won't work off campus. If they are serious about Hockey East, this has to happen.

 

[Dann]

while i think u are corect upstater it just seems like gampel is the rare possibility for it to work. i mean drop the bubble roof(w/e u call it) and steal bean right across and roof it. not hard and i would imagine not to expensive. its tall enough. then dig in what u need seats wise to lay a rink down.

play bball games in hartford until 2020. by that year u have the bball pf all set, a puck rink and in 2018 hopefully u expanded the rent. baseball and soccer are all set and it sound slike lax would be upgraded and taken care of 2. so by 2020 u have all your sports all set and its time to make a life changing decision. the bball program is rolling with ko and all other sports can take a back seat to your decsision(well we dont ignore fball but u get what im saying...).
do we want to redo the xl?
do we build a 15k arena in the rent parking lot?
do we build a 15k arena in downtown storrs?

i say #3 and then in 2025, u come out with a 2050 plan to move fball on campus. by then hopefully we have captured the state enough where 60k weekends on campus is culture. i think its the goal....

 

[HuskyHawk]

One of the better Jacobs articles I've seen. Maybe he's getting better. I don't think an NHL team is coming to Harford. I think an expanded an improved Gampel is a great move. I wouldn't delay the process by making it a dual use facility. Just build a 2500-3000 seat Hockey Rink somewhere, and share the parking. They need to get Gampel to about 14,000 and stop playing in Hartford. But the state will probably not go for it.

 

[upstater]

There's a 3 mile road from the highway to Storrs. It's stunning to see the resistance to widening that road. 3 fricken miles!!! Not hard to do. I've seen this done almost everywhere else. And yet I keep hearing complaints about the difficulties with this 3 mile stretch. It should be easy to do it, a good investment in building out Storrs, and it will help with expanding Gampel instead of the XLC.

 

[huskymedic]

Interesting how he ties the sweepstakes winner as critical to UConn's future in Conference Realignment. Also thought that the idea of closing Gampel for a few seasons to expand it for both Hoops & Hockey was worth noting.http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-men/hc-jacobs-column-0204-20130203,0,5955626.column

He's provoking because he can't get intel - from yesterday morning:

jacobscourant Feb 3, 10:13am via Twitter for iPhone
Tired of all the secrecy and garbage rumors. CRDA, Guv, LAZ, AEG, Bushnell, Global Spectrum come out from under the rocks.

jacobscourant Feb 3, 10:08am via Twitter for iPhone
Read Jan 6 about group interested in bringing NHL to CT approaching Gov. Malloy. A month later, nothing. Show your faces or be called ghosts

 

[Carl Spackler]

I don't know, I'm no structural engineer, but I think it would make a lot more sense to knock out a wall at the hangar/barn that is Freitas and expand the seating there around the existing rink to meet minimum hockey east requirements for now, rather than trying to outfit Gampel pavilion with an ice rink.

Gampel is not going to get turned into an ice rink. There are multiple caverns under the pavilion housing classrooms, laboratories, and strenght/training, equipment, coaching offices etc. Not only that, the pool - extends under the bleacher section on the memorial stadium side. (the pool, that's another fun subject - beautiful 50 meter pool, but they only made it 6 lanes instead of 8, and having a facility that can go 50m long and 25 yards wide.... so it's essentially extremely limited in what they can offer in there, because for some reason it had to fit into the Gampel designs.......never mind.

I don't think it would take too much time and cost at all. It would make sense to me, if like in basketball, especially early on, if some hockey games were held on Campus, and some games, bigger draws each season, were played on the ice in hartford.

It's possible that Jeff Jacobs has never been inside the Freitas building though.

As for Gampel, it's 23 years old now, and I'm again, no structural engineer, but looking around, the place is maxed out as is. It's either go to the drawing boards to revamp the existing structure, mainly the dome itself, or go the drawing boards from scratch.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Rentschler Field? UConn should buy it. Own it. Manage it. The entire property.

 

[huskymedic]

Just build a 2500-3000 seat Hockey Rink somewhere, and share the parking.

Hockey East has a minimum 4k rink seating requirement I believe...

 

[jdb50]

With the tight space that Gampel exists in I don't see how you can get more seats out of the same shaped building. It might be cheaper to tear the whole thing down and start over. Keeping hockey seperate in its own facility would work better for practice time etc as you wouldn't be disrupting the ice to lay down a hoops court for men's and women's games. Since we have men's and women's hockey that place would be busy enough on it's own. Any new hoops setup should get rid of the space wasted for pedestrian walkarounds in the arena and put this under the stands. With Gampel and the Rent we have made the same mistake twice by wasting valuable seating area for sidewalks in the arena viewing area.

 

[thatguyed]

There's a 3 mile road from the highway to Storrs. It's stunning to see the resistance to widening that road. 3 fricken miles!!! Not hard to do. I've seen this done almost everywhere else. And yet I keep hearing complaints about the difficulties with this 3 mile stretch. It should be easy to do it, a good investment in building out Storrs, and it will help with expanding Gampel instead of the XLC.

It's actually just shy of 8 miles from I-84 to campus. Seems like a short distance but the years it would take just to secure the land rights along 195 to allow widening it makes it prohibitive even before anything is considered on the costs.

Trust me, I'd love to see it. It would shave 10 minutes off my drive back to Stratford. But it's just not at all practical.

 

[upstater]

It's actually just shy of 8 miles from I-84 to campus. Seems like a short distance but the years it would take just to secure the land rights along 195 to allow widening it makes it prohibitive even before anything is considered on the costs.

Trust me, I'd love to see it. It would shave 10 minutes off my drive back to Stratford. But it's just not at all practical.

But why isn't this prohibitive anywhere else? The same problems with home owners exist elsewhere and they are solved easily. The Bills and the town of Orchard Park did this within the last decade. I've seen it done elsewhere, and it's going to have to be done eventually anyway, so might as well do it now.

 

[upstater]

But why isn't this prohibitive anywhere else? The same problems with home owners exist elsewhere and they are solved easily. The Bills and the town of Orchard Park did this within the last decade. I've seen it done elsewhere, and it's going to have to be done eventually anyway, so might as well do it now.

One other thing. I grew up on a road off of route 80, which comes off of I-91 into New Haven, Foxon, North Branford, etc. They widened that road pretty quickly and cut into everyone's front yards for many many miles. This is a pretty normal operation.

 

[Dann]

With the tight space that Gampel exists in I don't see how you can get more seats out of the same shaped building. It might be cheaper to tear the whole thing down and start over. Keeping hockey seperate in its own facility would work better for practice time etc as you wouldn't be disrupting the ice to lay down a hoops court for men's and women's games. Since we have men's and women's hockey that place would be busy enough on it's own. Any new hoops setup should get rid of the space wasted for pedestrian walkarounds in the arena and put this under the stands. With Gampel and the Rent we have made the same mistake twice by wasting valuable seating area for sidewalks in the arena viewing area.

what are u talking about? were building a 35mil practice facility for basketball.

 

[upstater]

what are u talking about? were building a 35mil practice facility for basketball.

I understood him to mean that practice time for hockey would be cut to a minimum if the floor was being switched from ice to hardwood.

 

[HuskyHawk]

There's a 3 mile road from the highway to Storrs. It's stunning to see the resistance to widening that road. 3 fricken miles!!! Not hard to do. I've seen this done almost everywhere else. And yet I keep hearing complaints about the difficulties with this 3 mile stretch. It should be easy to do it, a good investment in building out Storrs, and it will help with expanding Gampel instead of the XLC.

It is an absolute no-brainer. It should have been done 20 years ago. There is no excuse. The university is a resource for the state...people need to be able to get there.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Hockey East has a minimum 4k rink seating requirement I believe...

Ok, 4000 then. But dual facilities is a bad move.

 

[Dann]

I understood him to mean that practice time for hockey would be cut to a minimum if the floor was being switched from ice to hardwood.

yea why would we need hardwood?!?!? maybe im not aware of something? do we have like indoor field hockey or something on that floor also? bball goes to the pf and hartford. puck has its rink on campus and hartford until gampel is redone. easy as cake logistics wise. no?

 

[06029]

There's a 3 mile road from the highway to Storrs. It's stunning to see the resistance to widening that road. 3 fricken miles!!! Not hard to do. I've seen this done almost everywhere else. And yet I keep hearing complaints about the difficulties with this 3 mile stretch. It should be easy to do it, a good investment in building out Storrs, and it will help with expanding Gampel instead of the XLC.

Closer to 10 miles from I-84 to the center of campus. Along that road are a number of homes and businesses that already have almost zero front yard/frontage. So you are going to get into eminent domain/compensation issues with probably around 150-175 different owners. That is not an insignificant amount of legal and settlement money. Factor in the cost actually doing the widening (state project so add 25% on top opf whatever number you want) with the cost of acquiring the right of way, where does that money com from? Add in that Mansfield residents tend to be not all that welcoming to any Uconn growth, the really poorly received news that Uconn wants to start draining water from the Farmington River water shed because they have tapped local water sources out and Uconn would have a huge battle on their hands to accommodate a major road widening of 195 for the convenience of fans. There is plenty of political ill will directed at Uconn right now between the water stuff and with the cost of the upgrades the Gov announced last week. Tell the taxpayers they have to add another $100 mill+ to widen 10 miles of road to make it easier for fans to get to campus, and that is the problem.

 

[upstater]

Closer to 10 miles from I-84 to the center of campus. Along that road are a number of homes and businesses that already have almost zero front yard/frontage. So you are going to get into eminent domain/compensation issues with probably around 150-175 different owners. That is not an insignificant amount of legal and settlement money. Factor in the cost actually doing the widening (state project so add 25% on top opf whatever number you want) with the cost of acquiring the right of way, where does that money com from? Add in that Mansfield residents tend to be not all that welcoming to any Uconn growth, the really poorly received news that Uconn wants to start draining water from the Farmington River water shed because they have tapped local water sources out and Uconn would have a huge battle on their hands to accommodate a major road widening of 195 for the convenience of fans. There is plenty of political ill will directed at Uconn right now between the water stuff and with the cost of the upgrades the Gov announced last week. Tell the taxpayers they have to add another $100 mill+ to widen 10 miles of road to make it easier for fans to get to campus, and that is the problem.

It's 7.6 miles to the footstep of Gampel. And as I said, this is done regularly all around the state. It was done on route 80 in New Haven, Foxon, North Branford for longer than the road in Storrs. And this isn't for the convenience of fans as the campus is building out and adding tens of thousands.

 

[upstater]

yea why would we need hardwood?!?!? maybe im not aware of something? do we have like indoor field hockey or something on that floor also? bball goes to the pf and hartford. puck has its rink on campus and hartford until gampel is redone. easy as cake logistics wise. no?

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but he's saying ice practice time is lost for before, during, after men's and women's basketball games at Gampel.

 

[Dann]

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but he's saying ice practice time is lost for before, during, after men's and women's basketball games at Gampel.

im saying if we were willing to do a rink in gampel, then we should never play bball in it again. if your going to upgrade things then dont half do it, go for it.

-were building a bball pf. everything nongames will be in that now. we cna play home games for a couple years only in hartford. while thats not my favorite result, its doable and wont kill or hurt the program
-redo gampel to a 6k puck rink, thats our home ice. no hartford games accept maybe a winter break game or 2 type deal whne kids are no on campus. during that construction make xl the home rink until gampel is redone. the current rink can be on campus hom ice for now until gampel is done. once done, u cna redo the current rink on campus into a pf setip for puck or knock it down your choice.

then when this is all done and downtown storrs stage 1 is done, lets start talking about a 15k bball arena in that somehwere. 5k students and 10k fans is a good size and great home court.