When the University first pitched its plans for a new basketball arena three years ago, officials predicted an opening date of fall 2006. The date was pushed back two years because of funding problems, and University officials are hopeful the fall 2008 date won’t be pushed back any further. But recent statements from officials indicate they have resigned themselves to the possibility.
The reason? Funding problems.
“The day will come when we build an arena; we need to do that. The question is right now, ‘When and how expensive of a project is it going to be?’” University Vice President for Administration Dan Williams said.
The $160 million that University officials say they will need to construct the arena will still be raised privately, but Williams said the University has been cautious about the number of donors being contacted because there are other projects on the fundraising list that are more important.
“We wanted to be sure that the arena
wouldn’t be built at the expense of the
University’s higher priorities,” Williams said.
Williams said any debt incurred from the basketball arena’s design and construction will be the responsibility of National Championship Properties, a University of Oregon Foundation subsidiary, in order to mitigate financial problems the Athletics Department could face if met with considerable amounts of debt.
National Championship Properties has been part of the arena plan since the beginning but is now assuming more responsibility for the arena’s operation, Williams said.
“They will run the arena. They will operate the arena. The University will be a tenant,” Williams said. “We’re shifting the risk to NCP from the athletic department and the
University.”
University Athletic Director Bill Moos wrote to all Athletics Department donors and ticket holders last month informing them of the need for donations and listed specifics about the arena already confirmed by the firm working on the preliminary designs.
“We are currently seeking major gifts for the arena and hope to announce our ‘construction gift’ campaign within the next 6-12 months, followed by a donor seating campaign,” the March 7 letter reads.
According to the letter, the project is in its first phase of fundraising and is focused on securing gifts of more than $250,000 and soliciting and accepting pledges for construction gifts between $25,000 and $100,000.
“The strategy again is to raise the money from a limited group of donors and not be in competition with priorities in (Campaign Oregon), and we’ll build an arena that we can afford,” Williams said.
Each department of the University has its own base of constituents to appeal to, and members of the Athletics Department’s base are usually constituents of other areas of the University, Williams said.
“What we tried to do is identify the people who we know either have the capacity or whose primary interest is athletics from among our major donor group and told athletics essentially that the money you want to raise for the arena will need to come from this limited group,” Williams said. “We don’t raise money for the arena at the expense of other academic facilities and other campaign projects.”
Once funding is secure, the University will need to acquire several parcels of land surrounding the Williams’ Bakery site, the location for the new arena.
Williams said there is no question about whether the University will be able to acquire the additional land through eminent domain, the practice of the government taking private property for public use.
“We’ll always be able to purchase them; the question will always be ‘at what price?’” Williams said. “So we’re not at risk in that regard.”
University spokeswoman Pauline Austin emphasized that the University is not looking to exercise such property acquisition rights unless doing so is absolutely necessary.
“While we will do it, it’s not our preferred way,” Austin said.
Williams agreed.
“Condemnation is an act of last resort,” he said.
Williams said the vacant car lot near the bakery site that was recently purchased by the University of Oregon Foundation will likely be used as parking space for the arena. A multi-story parking structure is very expensive, and more space to park could reduce the size of such a structure, Williams said.
“If we could have surface parking at the (car lot), that would reduce the cost of the overall arena project,” Williams said.
Thompson, Vaivoda and Associates Architects Inc., an architecture firm in Portland, is working on the arena design with another firm but cannot do anything too elaborate until funding is secured, Williams said.
Firm member and University graduate Bob Thompson was an obvious choice to design the arena, Williams said, not because he is Nike CEO Phil Knight’s primary architect but because of his extensive ties to the University and his prominence in the architecture field.
“A lot of our conversations about the arena have been with Phil Knight over the years, and (Thompson) has been Phil’s preferred architect. So on the assumption that the Knights will be involved in that, they would prefer to use Thompson,” Williams said. “But we’re not using him to try to induce (donations).”

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