University President Dave Frohnmayer announced Monday that he has placed the new basketball arena project on indefinite hold as University officials face financial complications.
The new cost estimate of $180 million, announced last month, was too high for the University to break ground by this summer. An initial study conducted for the University estimated costs at $90 to $130 million.
“Review of the project — its scope, its complexity, its financing — make it clear that we cannot move forward at this point,” Frohnmayer said. “We thought it would be more important to postpone it until we could make sure all the right elements come together at the same time. We will need to develop an alternative in the near future.”
Frohnmayer said private donors for the arena, including major donor Phil Knight, agreed with the University’s decision to postpone construction. Frohnmayer could not speculate on whether donor money would still be available when the project is revisited, and he said he would never ask a donor to keep money on hold.
The new arena, originally intended to be funded entirely by private donors, would have contained 15,000 seats along with a separate building to house additional training and academic facilities. The University raised $100 million in philanthropy funds but would have needed to finance the rest on its own.
The Athletics Department, which is self-sufficient, was prepared to finance $30 million with the extra $50 million coming from bond sales.
“All told, we would’ve needed $130 million (from donors), and a lot of people would think that that could build a very nice arena,” Athletics Director Bill Moos said. “Indeed it has on some campuses. To get where we wanted to be and everything we wanted to include in this, the price tag got lofty.”
Frohnmayer, Moos and Vice President of Administration Dan Williams have been continually re-evaluating the project, but hit a wall about three weeks ago. They had hoped to find other sources of funding, yet found it was not feasible. However, Howe Field remains the preferred site for the arena.
Moos said he is not worried that others will frown on the University because of the decision. The University has one of the foremost programs in facility expansion across the nation, and Moos said he remains proud of the facilities already in place.
“Basketball is the one piece that is still missing as far as facilities,” Moos said. “The majority of my attention is going to be focused on that. Everything else I feel is in good shape.”
Moos said that Oregon men’s head coach Ernie Kent was “obviously disappointed” at the decision, but he said he doesn’t expect the postponement to negatively affect recruitment.
“I’m hoping that we can keep our energy alive and resurrect the project hopefully in the near future, put together a renewed funding model and go forward down the road,” Moos said.
Williams said the decision boiled down to the University’s inability to build the arena it envisioned, adding that the facility may need to be downsized at some point.
“There’s no villain in this,” Williams said. “There’s no one piece that you can point to, (and) if that had been different, we could have built it.”