Williams Arena: If you could upgrade it, what would you do?

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Perfect world for me: Make the volleyball area the new concourse (food-drink-etc.) and don't touch the raised floor. Then build a new small arena for the other sports. Never gonna happen, but I would choose that if possible.
 

Bump, to recent article about williams arena not being attractive to recruits aka hard sell, because we arent on tv a million times per season
 

SanDiegoGopherFan said:
Bump, to recent article about williams arena not being attractive to recruits aka hard sell, because we arent on tv a million times per season
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A gem on an article. Truly inspired.

But in reality, better bathrooms and food would be nice.
 



goldenboy said:
I’ve been attending/watching games at Williams Arena for almost 50 years, and I’ve never seen a serious injury from a player going off the edge of the floor. I don’t remember that many times that a player even left the floor. Maybe one every year or two? My guess is that there have been more players injured trying to leap the seats to save a possession in a typical arena.
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Agree. Played intramural's at them barn one year, never noticed the raised floor, it was very springy back then, easy to get up and down the court, that was noticed.
 

Otis said:
You can't do much without closing a road on one side or the other to widen it.

The wooden roof is a major fire hazard especially with the catwalk like stairways.

I saw plans once that kept the ends, Took off the roof, Raised the sides and flattened the top with the sides cantilevered over University and the road on the other side. This along with gutting the interior allowed for suites. 2nd floor concessions, bathrooms and windows.

Cost was pretty outrageous. It was a friends senior architecture project. Got him an A.

If I remember correctly seating was around 15,000.

Raised floor was pretty much untouched.
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I'm guessing at that point the cost isn't much cheaper than tearing it down and building a replica.
 


Complete guy everything in it. Essentially build a new arena in the shell of the old arena.
build it smaller capacity
howeda7 said:
Tear it down and rebuild an updated replica such as was done with Yankee Stadium.
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Or this
 




Put the student architects to work on this. A few to work on a new arena with costs, and then an updated William's arena with costs. Do a comparison and make a decision from there as to what would be best for the long term. Many posters have mentioned good ideas here. I would hope that the architects would come up with a good plan as well.
 





Some guy said:
Complete guy everything in it. Essentially build a new arena in the shell of the old arena.
build it smaller capacity
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I'm not an architect and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but at a certain point, trying to "keep the original shell" isn't cheaper and looks bad. I offer Soldier Field in Chicago as an example. Looks like an ugly space ship. Lambeau Field isn't as bad, but in both cases they should have torn down and rebuilt, IMO.
 

#2Gopher said:
Put the student architects to work on this. A few to work on a new arena with costs, and then an updated William's arena with costs. Do a comparison and make a decision from there as to what would be best for the long term. Many posters have mentioned good ideas here. I would hope that the architects would come up with a good plan as well.
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Love it but who will pay as we have facilities that still are not paid for.
 


Free trash bags at all entrances. Trash bags needed for winter coat which allows you to put coat under chair thus allowing you to fit in seat.
 




howeda7 said:
I'm not an architect and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but at a certain point, trying to "keep the original shell" isn't cheaper and looks bad. I offer Soldier Field in Chicago as an example. Looks like an ugly space ship. Lambeau Field isn't as bad, but in both cases they should have torn down and rebuilt, IMO.
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Yeah. It’s easier to do on a football stadium than basketball arena too.
For instance I really like what Notre Dame did
 


SanDiegoGopherFan said:
I would upgrade the bathrooms and this wont be a popular opinion but I would get rid of the raised floor. I've just seen too many times where guys are playing hard then they end up going over the floor, one of these days someone will get seriously hurt bc of it.

I wonder if any recruits had/have the raised floor as a negative at MN. It's nothing you will see in the NBA, so it doesn't prepare you for anything.
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I've been watching Gopher BB since the 1960's and never saw any player get hurt due to the raised floor. This also includes watching hundreds of state basketball tournament games there as well. It's one of several features that make Williams unique. It's actually safer than the playing surfaces on the floor since the photographers and support staff can't crowd the end zones.
 


builtbadgers said:
Love it but who will pay as we have facilities that still are not paid for.
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Agree with this 100%. Going to be a work in process as to design etc. Meanwhile they need to start winning to get excitement up. Really too bad as someone like Glen Taylor could easily pay for it if he wanted to with the idea of promoting basketball.
 

#2Gopher said:
Agree with this 100%. Going to be a work in process as to design etc. Meanwhile they need to start winning to get excitement up. Really too bad as someone like Glen Taylor could easily pay for it if he wanted to with the idea of promoting basketball.
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He supports Mankato State.
 




If the goal of upgrading is to help impress recruits, I wonder how much can realistically be done.
 

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