Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Dean Dome has been on the chopping block for more than 10 years.
So, are you among those who think the 38-year-old Smith Center is on life support? Well, it has been all the way back to before its namesake Dean Smith passed away in 2015. Talks were going on about renovating or rebuilding before then.
The 360 Architecture firm out of Kansas City actually provided UNC’s new athletic director Bubba Cunningham with some concepts back in 2013, charging UNC between $75-100,000. A year or two later, Bubba said “We’re good for now.”
That’s when major renovations inside the arena began, and it is a great building to watch basketball when you are not in a traffic jam or being crushed in the concourse. The latest study by another Kansas City firm Populous will cost $217,000 this time.
Hmmm, wonder what the Boards of Governors and Trustees think about that.
For some very good reasons, building a new basketball arena seems to be the favorite choice, such as:
– If built on a bigger plot of land, there will be more convenient parking.
– It can also have what the Dean Dome doesn’t, like a full underground level where TV trucks can get in and out and where there would be much more room for locker rooms, practice gyms, meeting and training rooms and much-needed storage areas.
– And most importantly, those seat licenses for two generations of families who bought them could be torn up or renegotiated to open up massive revenue streams that do not exist in the Smith Center these days.
– There could also be concerts, which the Dean Dome had in its early years before Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte got the best acts for even more moolah.
But where to build it?
There is no empty land on or adjacent to campus, like Virginia had when it built the JPJ in 2006, almost 20 years ago. E-gads!
We’ve heard ‘tear down the Friday Center and put it there,’ which might have enough room for an arena and parking lots and decks. But how would students get there?
How about building it in the Bowles parking lot next to the Dean Dome, which would then be taken down to put parking up there. But where does the team play or the people park while all that is going on? And don’t say play the games in Carmichael for the 3-5 years it would take to build the new Smith-Williams Center. Lose millions in ticket revenues, that’s why.
The Smith Center was like the eighth wonder when it opened in 1986. It was built with $36 million in private funding; think UNC could raise 15 or 20 times that amount now? But what about scholarship costs, recruiting budgets and good ol’ NIL?
Featured photo via Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
