Quote:

---

This major upgrade will refresh our basketball arena to include premier seating and club areas with hospitality services. We will widen our concourse and open it up to improve access and viewing while visiting concessions. We will reconfigure how our arena looks on the inside and offer more dynamic and engaging visuals to bring a second-to-none experience to student-athletes and fans.

---

Seems like a waste of money at this point

We can't even fill Reed as is. Expanding it would be a waste of time and resources.

DFWnation said:

---

We can't even fill Reed as is. Expanding it would be a waste of time and resources.

---

Just by looking at pictures, I'm assuming this will be reducing seating.

Cool. I'd definitely head in earlier if there was a place to grab a drink and watch other games going on which it looks like from that rendering.

It definitely needs an upgrade.

Agreed, the premium seating will be taking away some normal seats.

This came out in a survey about new financial campaign for TMF. Covers the next round of facility upgrades.
New football team facilities, practice fields, student athlete center, soccer stadium, indoor track and field, reed upgrades, new covered practice facility for west campus sports, Olsen field seating expansion

all the renderings show attendance about third full. Props for the accuracy of the drawings.

If you build it, they will come?

I know space is an issue, but with that level of money, build a new arena.

TXAggie2011 said:

---

I know space is an issue, but with that level of money, build a new arena.

---

Tear down Rudder Tower, relocate the offices to cheaper real estate, move the Trigon and Physical Plant, and build a kick-ass arena, theater, entertainment complex in the center of campus.

They really need a re-do on this. From a dollar perspective the Reed renovation should be the centerpiece of the capital campaign. Looks like we get a glass facade in the front of the building and a club that is the worst seats in the house - 2nd deck behind the goal. Totally uninspiring.

$125M is too much money to be doing something that is a half measure and not outstanding.

I have to confess, I'm not a fan of renovating Reed Arena until we can produce a basketball team to be proud of. Let's sell out Reed Arena first before worrying about renovations.

Renovate first. If you build it they will come.

Also I know it's not the main draw, but it's worth noting that our women's team is coming off of an SEC Championship season. So it's not like we don't have A basketball team to be proud of.

But waiting for the team to get good before making the facilities better is the wrong way of doing things.

If we did that, based on our history, the coach would be gone and/or we might suck again before it was ever done.

What would improve our team more:

1) spending $125M on a Reed renovation as described above, or

2) the same alumni spending that $125M on N-I-L opportunities for basketball players.

The impact of one of the above on our program's success would be astronomically different than the other.

I posted this on the Premium thread... I agree with Gap on this one. I know I need to stay in my lane when it comes to big money like this because all I can afford is a low 5-figure donation, but unless there is any upgrades to Kyle, nothing needs to take money from a basketball stadium upgrade. It baffles me why we would spend anymore money on soccer, tennis, and track. I don't care how dominant our indoor track team is, nobody knows about them outside of Aggieland (and I would only say 1 out of every 100 Aggies know it at that).


What is presented in the capital plan:

Student Athlete Academic Center: $35 million
New Football Practice complex: $40 million
Bright Building Renovation: $15 million
New Indoor Track Complex: $45 million
New soccer stadium: $30 million
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor Tennis Courts: $15 million
Training Field Pavilion: $10 million
Reed Arena: $125 million
Total: $345 million


What I think it needs to be:

Academic Center: $0
Practice Complex: $20 million
Bright: $0
Indoor Track Complex: $0
Soccer Stadium: $0
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor tennis courts: $0
Training Field Pavilion: $0
Reed Arena: $295 million

miller0926 said:

---

I posted this on the Premium thread... I agree with Gap on this one. I know I need to stay in my lane when it comes to big money like this because all I can afford is a low 5-figure donation, but unless there is any upgrades to Kyle, nothing needs to take money from a basketball stadium upgrade. It baffles me why we would spend anymore money on soccer, tennis, and track. I don't care how dominant our indoor track team is, nobody knows about them outside of Aggieland (and I would only say 1 out of every 100 Aggies know it at that).


What is presented in the capital plan:

Student Athlete Academic Center: $35 million
New Football Practice complex: $40 million
Bright Building Renovation: $15 million
New Indoor Track Complex: $45 million
New soccer stadium: $30 million
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor Tennis Courts: $15 million
Training Field Pavilion: $10 million
Reed Arena: $125 million
Total: $345 million


What I think it needs to be:

Academic Center: $0
Practice Complex: $20 million
Bright: $0
Indoor Track Complex: $0
Soccer Stadium: $0
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor tennis courts: $0
Training Field Pavilion: $0
Reed Arena: $295 million

---

Less Aggies can name somebody on the MBB team than who run track. If that is your criteria then Reed should get nothing.

BQ_90 said:

---

miller0926 said:

---

I posted this on the Premium thread... I agree with Gap on this one. I know I need to stay in my lane when it comes to big money like this because all I can afford is a low 5-figure donation, but unless there is any upgrades to Kyle, nothing needs to take money from a basketball stadium upgrade. It baffles me why we would spend anymore money on soccer, tennis, and track. I don't care how dominant our indoor track team is, nobody knows about them outside of Aggieland (and I would only say 1 out of every 100 Aggies know it at that).


What is presented in the capital plan:

Student Athlete Academic Center: $35 million
New Football Practice complex: $40 million
Bright Building Renovation: $15 million
New Indoor Track Complex: $45 million
New soccer stadium: $30 million
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor Tennis Courts: $15 million
Training Field Pavilion: $10 million
Reed Arena: $125 million
Total: $345 million


What I think it needs to be:

Academic Center: $0
Practice Complex: $20 million
Bright: $0
Indoor Track Complex: $0
Soccer Stadium: $0
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor tennis courts: $0
Training Field Pavilion: $0
Reed Arena: $295 million

---

Less Aggies can name somebody on the MBB team than who run track. If that is your criteria then Reed should get nothing.

---

The portal doesn't help that!

Everyone knows Athing Mu.

well Achane runs track too, most Aggies know who he is

I guess making it nicer with more potential revenue streams will help. The problem with Reed and its environs is that its primary use is as a giant parking lot where basketball is the secondary use. The arena should be somewhere like where Lot 61 is now, as close to the MSC as possible, and then all of the current Reed area can be a giant Lot 100. I'm guessing the big reason this is a renovation is all the money they've already spent on practice facilities at Reed which would need to either stay there at the old building or be rebuilt again.

I don't think moving Reed to 61 does enough for you to make it worth the hassle. The only logical place you could move Reed is the suggestion to basically blow up the middle of campus around Rudder Tower and the MSC and do something really drastic.

I will say that for $125M surely they can get the wifi to work in there. Half the time I can't even check scores of other games while in there. Place is like a giant Faraday cage or something.

Honestly it should have been built where the West Campus garage is. That was just a surface lot. Then we'd curently have a building much closer to the campus core, at a high visibility corner, connected to the underpass, basically nestled right between the most high traffic student facilities at the MSC and the Rec center.

I think there was just a mentality when it was designed about "how awesome it would be for everyone to have a place to park in a giant lot right around the whole arena" which is like weird 1960s and 70's sports arena logic.

JJxvi said:

---

Honestly it should have been built where the West Campus garage is. That was just a surface lot. Then we'd curently have a building much closer to the campus core, at a high visibility corner, connected to the underpass, basically nestled right between the most high traffic student facilities at the MSC and the Rec center.

I think there was just a mentality when it was designed about "how awesome it would be for everyone to have a place to park in a giant lot right around the whole arena" which is like weird 1960s and 70's sports arena logic.

---

But for many students they aren't going to the "core" of campus much, west campus has a bunch of traffic, it's not just a parking area to walk to "core part of campus"

again I don't get this students can't find Reed or it's too far to go to Reed, yet the Rec center is so popular they keep having to make it bigger.

When you're dealing with students with sports passes (ie customers who could just walk in if they wanted on a whim) visibility absolutely matters just like a retail store is going to want high visibility and traffic frontage. If this were a winning program in Indiana, or Kentucky, or North Carolina, yeah it probably wouldn't matter much, people would walk to a building in Hearne to watch the game, but I think it does have some effect here.

I'm not sure students going to basketball games was a factor at all in designing and building the arena and the grounds. It was designed for people to drive in from out of town, park, go to the building, back to their car, and then leave, which is not really what I think of as ideal in terms of a modern day college sports experience. Theres a whole before and after the game experience that Reed Arena was not built for.

miller0926 said:

---

I posted this on the Premium thread... I agree with Gap on this one. I know I need to stay in my lane when it comes to big money like this because all I can afford is a low 5-figure donation, but unless there is any upgrades to Kyle, nothing needs to take money from a basketball stadium upgrade. It baffles me why we would spend anymore money on soccer, tennis, and track. I don't care how dominant our indoor track team is, nobody knows about them outside of Aggieland (and I would only say 1 out of every 100 Aggies know it at that).


What is presented in the capital plan:

Student Athlete Academic Center: $35 million
New Football Practice complex: $40 million
Bright Building Renovation: $15 million
New Indoor Track Complex: $45 million
New soccer stadium: $30 million
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor Tennis Courts: $15 million
Training Field Pavilion: $10 million
Reed Arena: $125 million
Total: $345 million


What I think it needs to be:

Academic Center: $0
Practice Complex: $20 million
Bright: $0
Indoor Track Complex: $0
Soccer Stadium: $0
Blue Bell Park Upgrade: $30 million
Indoor tennis courts: $0
Training Field Pavilion: $0
Reed Arena: $295 million

---

If you only care about big time sports, why would baseball be included? Its a footnote sport nationally. You could argue track especially with NIL could be more meaningful face of the university than any baseball accomplishment by ANY program ever. I'd guess 30 million people AT LEAST worldwide was Athing Mu win the Olympic title in the 800m. If you took the sum of all unique people watching every college baseball game ever played (live or on TV), I doubt you'd get to 30 million.