Wrong. There were plenty of people that knew there was money available to fund a football program and build a stadium.

Paul Stanton listened to the wrong people and made a mess of the Athletic Dept. plus put a non qualified person, mullins, in the position of AD.

As soon as a new president, Dr. Noland, took office the football people had meetings with him and got the return of football rolling.

Poor leadership and poor judgement caused the loss of football and just the opposite caused the return. Money was never the problem.

(05-07-2018 09:03 PM)Buc76 Wrote:  Wrong. There were plenty of people that knew there was money available to fund a football program and build a stadium.

Paul Stanton listened to the wrong people and made a mess of the Athletic Dept. plus put a non qualified person, mullins, in the position of AD.

As soon as a new president, Dr. Noland, took office the football people had meetings with him and got the return of football rolling.

Poor leadership and poor judgement caused the loss of football and just the opposite caused the return. Money was never the problem.

I’m not going to argue any of that.

There is still money out there. Some of the big donors now weren’t in the fold 10 years ago. Bill Greene was not a football guy previously.

The foundation for new donors is set by winning games, filling venues, and creating a good atmosphere in those venues. As students who have fun at games graduate and succeed in life, they become donors. As new business leaders come into the area and see a winning program attracting energetic fans, they will become donors.

For football, we are just now setting the foundation for these new donors after not having the program for an entire generation of potential fans. Fortunately, enough people were passionate about its return to cause excitement and money to pour in. Now we need to start winning and not running off coaches for hitting players in the helmets in hopes to keep that ball rolling.

For basketball, we had a pretty successful program but we still had several years where it was very difficult to get students excited to come to games. That has now changed, as we have a winning program and a good atmosphere that fans are excited about. Now we just need to focus on filling that venue regularly instead of trying to do all the petty things we do to drive some fans away.

In the medium-long term, these things along with the continued growth of Johnson City will bring the donors needed to finance a new arena. This is the solution, as the new arena isn't going to happen soon. We simply don't have the money or the desire from either the city leadership or the athletic department to pursue it. This entire discussion is as useless as advocating for football's return while Paul Stanton was the president.

Building a new Arena at any school never happens overnight. It usually takes 10 years once true dialog begins by the people with the power. If you don't start having any discussions about a new arena it will never happen!

I visited NIU this past summer. They were very proud of the fact that the Convocation Center makes money for the athletic department.
https://www.niuhuskies.com/sports/2016/6...-html.aspx

ETSU is losing money as long as it doesn't have an on-campus arena such as the Elon Arena. The truth is Johnson City doesn't want ETSU to build an on-campus arena because it will be in direct competition with Freedom Hall for all events. I am surprised that Johnson City charges ETSU to use Freedom Hall.

http://huntconstructiongroup.com/project...rk-center/

http://www.hksinc.com/places/university-...rk-center/

https://www.uta.edu/ucomm/mediarelations...roved.html

Here is the UT Arlington College Park Center that was completed in 2012. This cost about $80 million. What is cool about this is that the facility has 484 resident hall beds.

The next construction project for ETSU is planned to be a new Humanities Classroom Building. Projected site is that of Campus Center building. Projected cost $76 million with ETSU responsible for raising $19 million of that cost.

The Bldg 60 Interprofessional Education facility is scheduled to open this year and the Lamb Hall annex project is in the architectural planning phase. The Culp Center addition is underway. The Martin Center is under construction. All of those projects required ETSU fundraising for the required 25% match for state funding.

(05-08-2018 10:31 AM)BucDoctor Wrote:  The next construction project for ETSU is planned to be a new Humanities Classroom Building. Projected site is that of Campus Center building. Projected cost $76 million with ETSU responsible for raising $19 million of that cost.

The Bldg 60 Interprofessional Education facility is scheduled to open this year and the Lamb Hall annex project is in the architectural planning phase. The Culp Center addition is underway. The Martin Center is under construction. All of those projects required ETSU fundraising for the required 25% match for state funding.

That's good to hear.

Dr. Noland and his staff, IMO, have done an unbelievable job of transforming the physical footprint, increasing educational opportunities, totally revamping the Athlectic Dept. and drastically changed the overall culture of ETSU.

Dr. Noland and his colleagues have developed a bridge connecting students, faculty, alumni, businesses and peoples of the surrounding communities.

As noted above, several large projects are underway and more in the planning stages.

As far as athlectic facilities are concerned, an outdoor track with a artificial turf football field to be used for football and band practice, a baseball fieldhouse, 120 yd indoor turf for Dome, new indoor tennis courts in Dome, etc. These projects are needed to insure our athletes and coaches have the opportunity to compete on equal terms with our peers.

As far as a new arena is concerned, there have been taIks and some preliminary specs as to what is needed. There is an order of need to be followed and the need for an arena is not immediate.

Dr. Noland has a plan and a timetable for capital improvements. As anyone can see, the physical presence of the football stadium, The PAC taking shape, the renovation of D.P. Culp and néw educational opportunities are proof that ETSU's leadership is moving the university rapidly forward.

(05-08-2018 12:07 PM)Buc76 Wrote:  Dr. Noland and his staff, IMO, have done an unbelievable job of transforming the physical footprint, increasing educational opportunities, totally revamping the Athlectic Dept. and drastically changed the overall culture of ETSU.

Dr. Noland and his colleagues have developed a bridge connecting students, faculty, alumni, businesses and peoples of the surrounding communities.

As noted above, several large projects are underway and more in the planning stages.

As far as athlectic facilities are concerned, an outdoor track with a artificial turf football field to be used for football and band practice, a baseball fieldhouse, 120 yd indoor turf for Dome, new indoor tennis courts in Dome, etc. These projects are needed to insure our athletes and coaches have the opportunity to compete on equal terms with our peers.

As far as a new arena is concerned, there have been taIks and some preliminary specs as to what is needed. There is an order of need to be followed and the need for an arena is not immediate.

Dr. Noland has a plan and a timetable for capital improvements. As anyone can see, the physical presence of the football stadium, The PAC taking shape, the renovation of D.P. Culp and néw educational opportunities are proof that ETSU's leadership is moving the university rapidly forward.

This sounds wonderful! Just a reminder of how blessed and lucky we are
to have Dr. Nolan’s as our president.

(05-08-2018 12:07 PM)Buc76 Wrote:  Dr. Noland and his staff, IMO, have done an unbelievable job of transforming the physical footprint, increasing educational opportunities, totally revamping the Athlectic Dept. and drastically changed the overall culture of ETSU.

Dr. Noland and his colleagues have developed a bridge connecting students, faculty, alumni, businesses and peoples of the surrounding communities.

As noted above, several large projects are underway and more in the planning stages.

As far as athlectic facilities are concerned, an outdoor track with a artificial turf football field to be used for football and band practice, a baseball fieldhouse, 120 yd indoor turf for Dome, new indoor tennis courts in Dome, etc. These projects are needed to insure our athletes and coaches have the opportunity to compete on equal terms with our peers.

As far as a new arena is concerned, there have been taIks and some preliminary specs as to what is needed. There is an order of need to be followed and the need for an arena is not immediate.

Dr. Noland has a plan and a timetable for capital improvements. As anyone can see, the physical presence of the football stadium, The PAC taking shape, the renovation of D.P. Culp and néw educational opportunities are proof that ETSU's leadership is moving the university rapidly forward.

No one is complaining that Dr. Noland isn't doing his job and no one has said that a new arena needs to be built immediately. The reason for the discussion has been the innuendo that a new arena isn't needed or wanted by some...

If he hasn't seen the drawing for the Elon University Schar Center; please give him the link. You don't have to spend $80-100 million on a new arena.

https://werarch.com/projects/elon-univer...har-center

If this plan gets very far at all, having an arena down along Walnut St. becomes vanishingly unlikely:

West Walnut *proposed* master plan

Separately........Gary Gray had an article in the News & Neighbor last week (dated May 9) entitled "Commissioners pay final bill for Freedom Hall renovations". As of now, it's not available online, but it has some interesting statistics and details on how much each phase of the renovations and enhancements cost. Apparently the seating capacity was increased from 5437 to 5965 with the "telescopic seats". Interesting summary, but maybe not anything new (not sure).

University had no plans to put the arena on Walnut street. That idea was, I believe, expressed by posters on this board.

(05-16-2018 10:44 AM)Buc76 Wrote:  University had no plans to put the arena on Walnut street. That idea was, I believe, expressed by posters on this board.

Yes, I realize that (altho the idea/concept was/is not novel or exclusive to this board)..........but it really makes a lot of sense as something that could conceivably be shared by 'town and gown'. Just sayin'....

(05-16-2018 11:13 AM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  

(05-16-2018 10:44 AM)Buc76 Wrote:  University had no plans to put the arena on Walnut street. That idea was, I believe, expressed by posters on this board.

Yes, I realize that (altho the idea/concept was/is not novel or exclusive to this board)..........but it really makes a lot of sense as something that could conceivably be shared by 'town and gown'. Just sayin'....

That plan was just sad. To not have an arena on that long range plan as at least an option is weird. Guess the city will stick with their arena on a middle school campus forever. Hopefully this at least puts the ball in ETSU’s court to plan for an on campus arena.

I can tell you that when I was an undergrad there in the dark ages that discussions were had about an arena on Walnut to serve as kind of a connecting point between campus and the downtown area. It would absolutely work to put one there, but how dare they do something that could benefit both entities and serve the entire Tri-Cities region, serving as a major gathering point for high level concerts that don't feature aging stars of yesteryear that show up 3/4 housed.
Nah, the idea of staying in Freedom Hall seems like a much better idea.

That idea as presented in the plan is silly. That designer essentially stole a bunch of money from the city for something that will never happen.

On ETSU's most recent master plan, they had indicated that McDonalds/bookstore area as a potential area for acquisition in the future. Many on here said that McDonalds would never sale to make way for an arena. Well, they sure aren't going to sale to make way for a condo complex. Neither is Firehouse, Dominos, Tupelo, etc. going to be turned into retail. The city might be able to force Harman Ice to relocate in order to put a new road through, but that would be stupid and expensive. Other than the road improvements, this design has no practical value.

Not related to a new arena but ETSU is going to purchase the millennium center from the city.

Also, an article in the paper the other day about the traffic at west walnut and state of franklin mentioned that ETSU were planning to build a parking garage at the corner state of Franklin across from McDonald’s.

It's a hassle to visit that McDonald's via car, but is still benefiting from foot traffic. It's qbecoming outdated and a renovation should be considered soon. This would be an opportune time for the college to come in and negotiate for the parcel.

It's a hassle to visit McDonalds. That intersection is totally conjested. Those comments are true but the university should buy this parcel and construct an 8-10k arena on that intersection. I'm sure that would take care of conjestion.

There is no way the traffic could be handled without Millions and millions of dollars for a total revamp of all roads, university parkway, Tenn Street, Walnut Street and State of Franklin, the acquisition of aditional businesses on Walnut street, walk ways woukd have to be constructed to cross all roads, plus there is nowhere to park 5000 cars. Can't see any pluses to building an arena on that site.

There have been discussions to place the arena in the vicinity of the current parking garage, IMO, a much better location and at an affordable cost.

Again, don't anticipate any arena for at least 6yrs+, unless some benevolent individual or company ponies up at least 30- 35 million. University cannot handle the debt load to build an arena without a huge outside investment.

(08-20-2018 10:46 AM)Buc76 Wrote:  There have been discussions to place the arena in the vicinity of the current parking garage, IMO, a much better location and at an affordable cost.

What area is left around there though? Earthfare shopping center? The practice/intramural fields next to the CPA? I agree, that area would be a great place.