The Buildings and Grounds Committee of the Board of Visitors decided before Spring Break that the new basketball arena should contain 15,000 seats, perhaps 4,000 to 5,000 of which would be reserved for students.
The University hired a Charlottesville-based architectural firm, V.M.D.O., which works in conjunction with a Kansas City firm called Ellerbee Becket, to design the arena, which would replace the over 35-year-old University Hall where the University's basketball teams now play.
Ellerbee Becket is "the preeminent basketball arena design firm in the country," University architect Pete Anderson said.
In a March 7 meeting with representatives of the firms, the committee decided the arena should contain 15,000 seats, Board member Terence P. Ross said.
The amount or location of student seating has not been decided, Board member William H. Goodwin Jr. said.
But at least 4,000 seats probably would be reserved for students, Ross said. Moreover, that number could be increased in times of high demand to as many as 5,000, he added.
"That should more than cover any extraordinary demand for big games," he said.
That would mean a larger proportion of seats would be reserved for students than in University Hall, which contains 8,457 total seats and about 2,000 student seats, he added.
"It is everybody's concern that there be a lot of student seats and that they be well located and highly visible on television," Anderson said.
Anderson's office met with Student Council President Abby Fifer and Board member Gordon Rainey Jr. to discuss student seating issues.
The committee wanted to build an arena large enough so students would not have to camp out for long periods of time before certain games, Ross said.
Lengthy lines have discouraged students from even attempting to attend games, resulting in empty student seats, he said.
A 15,000-seat arena also would give the University a chance to host first-round NCAA tournament games and the ACC tournament, Ross said.
The committee also approved conceptual designs for the arena.
The architects presented a "horseshoe"-style design for the new arena. Unlike University Hall, which was built in a circular shape for reasons of design efficiency, the new arena, as now envisioned, would be rectangular with one curved end. The other, flat end of the rectangle would contain no seats.
Such a design is in keeping with new trends in arena-building, Goodwin said.
The "horseshoe" shape would make concerts and other events besides basketball more feasible, Ross said. It also would allow the upper decks to be built much closer to the court than they are at University Hall, he said.
The flat side of the arena, which would stand next to the current site of University Hall, would face Emmet Street and would be the "showcase side," he added.
"The architects have done a great job of thinking outside the box," Ross said.
"It's a pretty ingenious concept," Goodwin said. "We were very excited."
The University architect's office, which has worked with V.M.D.O. and Ellerbee Becket in the early stages of design, hopes to integrate the arena into the Jeffersonian architectural tradition, Anderson said.
University Hall, on the other hand, stands "completely outside that tradition," he said.
The arena will be made of red brick with white trim and will have "strong echoes" of Scott Stadium, he said.
"It's a pretty handsome building as it stands now," he added.
Construction is slated to begin in earnest on the arena in summer 2003 and to be completed for the 2006 basketball season, Anderson said.
Much of the money required for the arena still has to be raised, even though the University has received two $20 million donations earmarked for the project, Goodwin said. He said he is optimistic University President John T. Casteen III will succeed in fundraising.
The arena's original budget was $120 million, although the architects estimated the cost of their design higher than that, Ross said.
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