Qwest Center Omaha (building)

projectman · Post by **projectman** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:26 pm

No it needs to be 200 stories.

OmahaDevelopmentMan · Post by **OmahaDevelopmentMan** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:35 pm

jeese some crapy 200 story marriott. Thats almost worse than what we have. Make it 1000.

OmahaHome · Post by **OmahaHome** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:26 pm

DMRyan...I like that idea alot...it sounds very well thought out. I really wish people would have thought about that. I don't really mind the lots...I would like an entertainment district better though. You should pitch that idea seems how it seems the condos on that side are not going to happen.

DMRyan · Post by **DMRyan** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:35 pm

Please take my smart-|expletive| liberal elitist comments in jest.

It's always fun to dream though.

projectman · Post by **projectman** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:48 pm

Is there any other way?

POTUS · Post by **POTUS** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:02 pm

Have any of you ever been to Norfolk's MacArthur Center?

(picture is directly linked from the shopmacarthur.com page)

It's a good mix of parking and a mall downtown. I think we could adapt it to a massive block building entertainment/hotel/apartments district to replace what is now the Qwest Center parking lots.

Ingersoll1978 · Post by **Ingersoll1978** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:55 pm

I would assume the World Herald would have picked up on it by now if it was indeed improved. Plus if it was approved by a public body, it would be PUBLIC information. Doesn't make sense.

UNOstudent · Post by **UNOstudent** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:51 am

i remember being at the target center in minneapolis and i was sitting above the scoreboard. i could see directly across from my seat to the seats on the opposite side of the arena.

OmahaHome · Post by **OmahaHome** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:19 am

I have a freind I used to work with that works at The Qwest Center box office and they seem to think the same thing... he said they have funding and are going to expand but has no idea...the way it sounded was later rather than sooner. I trust him, so I believe DTO

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:20 pm

OmahaDevelopmentMan wrote:This may seem off topic, but I though of this plan today and this is the closest topic.

Ok heres what needs to happen. The lots outside the qwest center, yea bad idea. So this is what needs to be done. Tear down the lots and build a new entertainment district with lots of stores, hotels, resteraunts, and a movie theatre. Rather than making a bunch of shorter buildings like village point for example, maybe make them taller and have condos or office space above them. Then build a grage around the area that is large enough to support the QC and the entertainment district. Oh and then build the Marriott somewhere in that area. This is just an idea, what can I say, if I were involved in the planning of the QC i would have done a lot of things differently. But I wasn't so oh well.

Not a bad idea. It has recently been done in the Pentagon City section of Arlington, VA. Two lower levels of shops (Bed, Bath & Beyond and similar) topped by condos. It is across the street from a Hyatt hotel and 100+ store enclosed mall, and across the street from an old warehouse that was remodeled to include a Borders and Best Buy. Now, of course you have a much larger population base in Arlington than in Omaha, plus all are on the Metro subway line to the airport. But it can and has been done.

StreetsOfOmaha · Post by **StreetsOfOmaha** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:24 am

OmahaDevelopmentMan wrote:This may seem off topic, but I though of this plan today and this is the closest topic.

Ok heres what needs to happen. The lots outside the qwest center, yea bad idea. So this is what needs to be done. Tear down the lots and build a new entertainment district with lots of stores, hotels, resteraunts, and a movie theatre. Rather than making a bunch of shorter buildings like village point for example, maybe make them taller and have condos or office space above them. Then build a grage around the area that is large enough to support the QC and the entertainment district. Oh and then build the Marriott somewhere in that area. This is just an idea, what can I say, if I were involved in the planning of the QC i would have done a lot of things differently. But I wasn't so oh well.

North Downtown Study, anyone? Believe me it takes into account the massive surface lots at Qwest Center. It's definitely already been thought of, and is in the "study" phase. Great idea, nonetheless.

OmahaDevelopmentMan · Post by **OmahaDevelopmentMan** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 3:54 pm

Wait streets...are you saying that there is a possibility that his may actually happen?!?!?

scraper · Post by **scraper** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:37 am

KETV.com is saying construction will go forward next May. Will take capacity to about 17,500 for basketball and maybe allow for us to get the women's Final Four. Will include a new concourse and restrooms and cost a bit under $6 million.

Post by **Omaha Cowboy** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:01 pm

scraper wrote:KETV.com is saying construction will go forward next May. Will take capacity to about 17,500 for basketball and maybe allow for us to get the women's Final Four. Will include a new concourse and restrooms and cost a bit under $6 million.

Excellent! Not exactly 2000 more seats..But I'll take it..From the OmahaChannel.com story:

'The Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority voted to add 1,472 seats to the Qwest Center, bringing the total seating for a basketball configuration to 17,560. That's enough to qualify the Qwest for Big 12 and other major collegiate events.'..

The link to the complete story:

http://www.theomahachannel.com/sports/4 ... etail.html

..Ciao..LiO....Peace

FatGuy · Post by **FatGuy** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:07 pm

I would find it ironic if the NCAA and Big XII increased their requirements to 18,000 for basketball.

ItsAllAboutMe · Post by **ItsAllAboutMe** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:14 pm

I really like the open end of the arena & the large beer garden atmosphere it provides. I hope they are able to add the seats without completely destroying that aspect.

omahahawk · Post by **omahahawk** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:39 pm

Anybody able to post an an ehanced pic? The one at KETV is so small its hard to get a good idea.

scraper · Post by **scraper** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:04 pm

Hopefully enclosing the open end will help keep the crowd noise closer to the floor and increase home court and home ice advantage for the Jays and Mavs.

Finn · Post by **Finn** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:10 pm

Hopefully enclosing the open end will help keep the crowd noise closer to the floor and increase home court and home ice advantage for the Jays and Mavs.

Good point. It needs to be louder in there!

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:57 pm

$5.6MM expansion budget for 1470-something new seats and some bathrooms.

Anyone care to guesstimate what those same facilities would have cost had they been in the original plans/construction?

-Big E

Finn · Post by **Finn** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:17 pm

I guestimate that it would have been a bunch of bitching by residents calling it a white elephant and pork-barrel spending!

FatGuy · Post by **FatGuy** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:35 pm

I am guessing it would be considerably less than 6 million. Finn, I guess I don't see the difference between $291 million and $295-297 million . I doubt this 2% increase is enough to put the project into the pork-barrel category. That is, if people did not believe $291 million was pork-barrel.

I actually think less people would |expletive| - knowing that we would get roughly 10% more seats for such a small percentage increase of cost. More bang for the buck. Conservative Omahans love a good bargain.

Finn · Post by **Finn** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:50 pm

I don't think there is much difference between $291 million and $295-297 million. But, where are these numbers from?

This harkens back to the days when Mayor Morgan proposed a new arena to replace the Civic and consevative Omahans said heck NO! Instead, we wasted money on refurbishing the Civic. It took a long time to convince the public we needed a new arena and there were still many opponents calling it a white elephant and pork-barrel spending when we had the newly renovated Civic. If the Qwest was underperforming with those additional couple thousand seats we would never hear the end of irresponsible government spending.

FatGuy · Post by **FatGuy** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:35 pm

$291 comes from the original cost of the project.
$295-$297 comes from a $4-$6 increase on top of the original cost.

I assumed the cost to add the seats now is more expensive or equal to the cost had they be put in at the time of the original construction. As I understand, renovations and add-ons are usually more expensive than implementing the add-on into the original plan. Maybe this assumption is wrong, but I think it is logical.

Also if the Qwest Center was tanking in its current state, we would also not hear the end of irresponsible gov't spending. I think many Omahan's bought into Daub's "Go big, or go home" mentality. Morgan could not get that support, and Fahey's one mistake was not latching onto that attitude earlier (Marriot). Soon we will add on to the Hilton as well. The expansion will result in a medicre 90 million dollar Hilton vs. a kickass 90 million dollar Marriot.

I wish we would do things right the first time. Daub had vision.

Post by **Brad** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:40 pm

Are they still going to leave the end by the Bud Bar semi-open with seats above the area so that this will still be a gathering place?

OmahaDevelopmentMan · Post by **OmahaDevelopmentMan** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:16 pm

Here's a rendering. It looks like they will try to keep the bar area as open as possible.

lonnie · Post by **lonnie** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 7:11 pm

Hmmmm...

$6,000,000 / 1472 seats / 50 (dollars/ticket) / 4 (seats/year) = 20 years to break-even

Hmmm

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:18 pm

1) Where are you getting your $50 x 4 seats/yr number?

2) It's $5.6MM, not $6MM.

At $5.6MM (quoted from article), 1472 seats will cost $3805 per seat for installation. Assuming those tickets average $25 per seat per event, you're talking about 152 sell out events for the new seats to pay for themselves. Assuming one such event per month (very conservatively), and you're looking at 13 years. Use your $50 number at you're under 7 seven years.

The new seats will allow the arena to bid on and attract more frequent, larger, and more high-profile events. These events, in turn, would create higher average ticket prices per 17,000+ seats, relieving some of the new seats' burden of paying for themselves.

I'm sure my frequencies and assumptions will be disputed, but the cost per seat can't be.

-Big E

lonnie · Post by **lonnie** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:31 pm

Big E wrote:1) Where are you getting your $50 x 4 seats/yr number?

Purely a guess... your $25 is is probably a better number. We are talking MECA profits.

I will stick with my 4 seats/year number. These are BAD seats and are not used with concerts. Even if these are 50% sold for 8 events a year, or 25% sold for 16 events a year, my 4 number stands.

$5,600,000 / 1472 / $25 / 4 = 38 years break-even

Jeff will need to archive this thread and in that time we will see who is correct.

Time will tell.

Post by **Brad** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:25 pm

I agree with bige it won't take long to pay off. I like how they have kept the bud bar open.

Post by **Omaha Cowboy** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 12:59 am

And from the evening W-H:

'The seating would be funded out of MECA's regular operating budget and would not affect a plan under which MECA is repaying the city for money advanced for some construction costs, MECA officials said.'..

The complete story link:

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=163 ... nd=3254637

..Ciao..LiO....Peace

scraper · Post by **scraper** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 7:59 am

Going solely by how many times those seats are used is pretty short-sighted in determining if they're worth the $$. How about landing one Big XII basketball tournament or women's Final Four = seats more than paid for themselves with the economic impact of hosting that tournament.

omahahawk · Post by **omahahawk** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 9:39 am

Also, Trav on KMTV3 digs them.

Post by **Omaha Cowboy** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 10:03 am

And this online piece from Omaha NBC affiliate WOWT:

http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/1617996.html

A highlight from the article:

'MECA officials hope the extra seats will make the Qwest Center big enough to attract the Big 12 Basketball Tourament and the Frozen Four, Division I hockey's final four. "The NCAA as we all know really likes Omaha," said Dixon (MECA President). "This gets us up to that level, makes it easy to select ..'..

..Ciao..LiO....Peace

Post by **Brad** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 4:44 pm

omaja · Post by **omaja** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 5:14 pm

I don't think the Qwest can put 'seets' on the 'otherside'... because in order to do that they would need to have 'seets' in the first place.

OmahaDevelopmentMan · Post by **OmahaDevelopmentMan** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 6:17 pm

I noticed that. I just was just thinking it was an error in the rendering. If you notice the seats are also much steeper than the original part. So thats my guess. Maybe I'm wrong.

omahahawk · Post by **omahahawk** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 6:28 pm

Actually, I bet thats pretty much the way its going to look. It seems pretty symetrical to the otherside. I also love the fact that they kept the Bud bar as is. I think extra seats are called for and I love to get the them. But I wouldn't want to totally compromise the Bud bar just to get to get an even 2000 more when they already got the additional 1500 or whatever the exact number was. That open plateu kind of space has kind of become a signature thing for the Q.

GoWest · Post by **GoWest** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 6:38 pm

I’m not really a fan of the bud bar area. I think that while nice, it is an extreme hazard for patrons to stand around not paying attention to a hockey game behind the goal area like that. Basketball, ok, but not for hockey. Hockey is the entertainment of choice that I most go to the Qwest for. There is a lot of 90mph frozen rubber that files into the Bud Bar area.

OmahaDevelopmentMan · Post by **OmahaDevelopmentMan** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 9:39 pm

I actually think the expansion side will look similar to the side of the ribbon or banner or whatever its called. Because if it is built like the south side (i believe?) it will block off the view from the Bud bar. But, if it is u built as a continuation of the banner side, the view will not be obstructed. I do believe it was just a bad rendering and there wasn't suppose to be a gap in it. Hopefully I'm right. A giant gap would look bad.