(05-07-2019 07:40 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(05-07-2019 07:08 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(05-07-2019 12:56 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-06-2019 04:52 PM)Renandpat Wrote:  

(05-06-2019 03:38 PM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  It appears Illinois is serious about hockey.

Given that the Big Ten is at seven, would this make it less likely that Arizona State would receive an invitation?

Well, last week, this did occur.

https://will.illinois.edu/news/story/the...uncil-stud

Quote:Champaign City Council members indicated in a study session Tuesday night that they’re ready to commit future tax revenue to help a quarter billion downtown project known as “The Yards”.

Developers Brian Neiswender, Marc Lifshin and Hans Grotelueschen are working together on the $250 million project. “The Yards” would use nearly 11 acres of land in what was Champaign’s original industrial district, located south of University Avenue. The site includes parking lots currently used by Christie Clinic employees, and now-vacant buildings that for many years housed the Goodyear Twin City Tire Co., and the Rogards office supply store.

But some of the city funding would reach developers early, in the form of bonds issued by the city to finance the building of the parking structures and also new sanitary sewers to serve both the new development and other buildings in the area.

That didn’t sit well with residents of the infrastructure-poor Garden Hills neighborhood, which isn’t expected to get its long-sought new storm sewers, streetlights and sidewalks until 2030. Two neighborhood activists, Chad Smith and Amy Revilla, told council members they didn’t appreciate waiting while the new downtown development was seemingly given priority. Another Garden Hills resident who complained was First District council member Clarissa Nickerson Fourman.

The development plan is really what makes Illinois hockey viable (at least on paper). This isn't just a hockey-only arena, but it would also be the new homes for the volleyball and wrestling teams along with a centralized youth sports center supporting basketball and other sports.

More importantly, this can really change Champaign in its overall attractiveness as a college town. I think that one of the drawbacks to Champaign compared to its peer competitor college towns (such as Madison, Ann Arbor and Bloomington) is that there's a gap between the downtown Champaign area (which is more professional and, for a lack of a better term, "grown up") and the campus itself. The Campustown area next to campus has a ton of bars and nightlife geared toward students, but there's very little reason for anyone other than a student to really go there. That's a big difference compared to, say, Madison, where it's a continuous transition from campus to the rest of its downtown and it's a much greater mix between the students and the larger community.

The U of I campus amenities (not the campus itself, but rather student-focused businesses and apartments) have increasingly grown closer to downtown Champaign, but they're still not quite linked. The proposed arena can really be that "last mile" link between the two areas and supercharge the connections between the two. All it takes is a couple of more blocks of development between that arena and the current Campustown boundaries and suddenly Champaign becomes a whole lot more attractive as a college town compared to now. (It will never be Madison/Ann Arbor/Austin-level, but it will at least no longer be a negative.) That's a potential campus/college town-changing initiative that goes far beyond the hockey team, which is why this new program might finally get off the ground (cross my fingers) after literally decades of discussions. We were talking about an Illinois Division I hockey program back when I was in college... and I'm 41 years old now.

It doesn't help that the University of Illinois has a VERY spread out campus. It's 2.5 miles from north-to-south and over 1 mile wide once you get south of the original quad. And it's got a 52 acre cemetery right in the middle.

It makes Purdue look like a compact urban campus by comparison (and Purdue is pretty spread out compared to most universities).

I was there in the early 80's - never really got the sense that it was that spread out.

Freshman year I lived in Oglesby (far SE corner of campus) Union 1 mile away, Ice Arena 1 mile away.

Maybe it wasn't then... but that was almost 40 years ago. It's grown from 33,000 students in 1980 to 49,000 today.

Other Midwestern state schools have seen similar growth. But landlocked campuses like Ohio State and Cincinnati and Wisconsin chose to build UP rather than OUT.

Purdue built UP for its business buildings, but most of Purdue's construction over the past 10 years has been far away from the Main Quad. Yet Purdue is avoiding Illinois' mistake because they are making the dorms the center of campus. The quad is east of the dorms, and new construction is mostly south and northwest of the dorms. Illinois, on the other hand, is making the football stadium & the neighboring cemetery the center of campus.