re: LSU Close to Announcing New Basketball Facilities

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Play a season at the Centroplex

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Or lets renovate the Centroplex and play all of games downtown.

If the students would show up, I would want them to do something like this.

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Tear down the PMAC and never ever look back.
I saw Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones there....must stay up!!!

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The only thing I would miss about the PMAC is the dungeon. as a kid at LSU summer camps, I got to see CJ, Shaq, Stanley Roberts, Vernell (before he was a chubby chaser).... all those great LSU players of that era play down there. Shaq and CJ were amazing. I specificallly remember shaq calling Gert a pussy because he didn't want to play anymore after shaq abused him during a game.

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I don't think you are going to see much, if anything, done to the PMAC. Wade's main push for 4 years has been to upgrade the practice facility. He wants (on a smaller scale, obviously) something similar to the football facility where everything for the basketball program is in one building...coaches' offices, weight training/workout facility; practice courts, meeting rooms, locker room, etc. The current facility has some of that, but not all. The players still workout in the weight room in Tiger Stadium. The coaches' offices are in the athletic building across the street from the PMAC.

He wants the basketball facility to be a spot where the players/coaches can go and don't have to leave to do something else (like the football facility). He's so neurotic about it, in fact, he calculated the amount of time wasted on a yearly basis with the players walking back and forth to the various facilities

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Yes, we all know this part and he mentioned some of that yesterday, which is the part that he talked about being the first phase essentially. He said they are already working on getting their own workout facility there so they don't have to go to the one in the football stadium anymore.

But he wasn't just talking about the team ops facilities. You don't bring in a company like Populous to just remodel and expand the ops facility. He was talking about the arena as well.

As for remodeling, there is a lot that can be done to the PMAC and Populous even has some arena projects on their site that dealt with having to convert an existing dome arena into something different, while still preserving the bones of the structure. If they remove the ramps on the south side, they can convert that whole area into a more modern looking grand entrance with clear glass and all, along with sports shops, eating places and large corridors. Even with the facility being circular, they can still convert the inside seating areas to be more rectangular and add in the premium seating and suites. There is a ton they can do.

Georgia Tech's facility is a great example and something I think fans here would love. It was originally built as a dome in 1956, 15 years before the PMAC. In 2011 they worked with Populous and others to remodel. It was a $50M project that took a year and a half to complete. Here are some links to a video of the remodel, GA Tech's site about the project, and Populous' project site: Video GA Tech Facility Link Populous - GA Tech

What would a new arena cost??
$50 mil seems close to a new arena.
What GT did looks awesome

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What would a new arena cost??
$50 mil seems close to a new arena.

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Would cost at least double to build a brand new one. But just all depends on location and what all is put into it as I found some for just around a 100 million and some way over that. Here are some examples of builds within the past 10 years:

Auburn: Opened 2010; $86M ($102M today); seats 9,121
Oregon: Opened 2011; $227M ($261M today); seats 12,364
Nebraska (Pinnacle Bank Arena, used by the city as well): Opened 2013; $180.7M ($201M today); seats 15,500
Ole Miss: Opened 2016; $96.5M ($105M today approx.); seats 9,500
DePaul (Wintrust Arena, used by city as an event center & for WNBA team): Opened 2017; $173M; seats 10,387

Wade also said a couple years ago that they were already conducting feasibility studies on the PMAC and how to remodel it or the best way to go about it. Yes his first priority is the practice facility/basketball ops. But he said before and hinted before he wants a new arena or completely remodeled one.

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I like the look of Ga Tech's remodel, would look great at LSU

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Same. I think a lot of similar things could be done with the PMAC and probably even raised a level as far as amenities and aesthetics.

Basketball is getting their own Ops Building added onto the PMAC

adding trash additions to the trash pmac would be a mistake.