Jonny722
Dec 11, 2007, 10:07 PM
Fresh off the press. Anyone have more info/renderings?
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/magic/2007-12-11-arena-plans_N.htm
ORLANDO — On nights when the Orlando Magic are playing in the new events center by 2010, a glass enclosed 116-foot tower at the northeast corner of the facility will be aglow in blue light.
The tower, positioned at the corners of Church Street and Hughey Avenue, will offer patio views of nearby Interstate 4 and another balcony at the top will give patrons shots of downtown Orlando's skyline.
The tower idea, taken from a concept at Orlando's former Union Station rail yards, is just one of the features that the City of Orlando and the Magic hope will make the new arena unique and visually striking to the eye.
"We want to bring a lot of the excitement and energy to the outside of the building, so when you come up to it it's not going to be some generic box with a basketball game inside," said John Shreve, principal architect for HOK Sport. "It's going to be extremely dynamic on the outside. Church Street is going to feel like a stage, and everybody is an actor. We're going to have balconies, terraces, lights and escalators. We think these are the things that make this a unique building in Orlando."
What will also make the facility unique to Orlando is that the new events center will be 800,000 square feet, more than double the size of the 367,000-square-foot Amway Arena that the Magic have played in the past 18 years. And whereas Amway's exterior is made mostly of concrete, the new design incorporates a 20,000-square-foot glass front facing Church Street and the potentially iconic tower near I-4.
The facility that will house the Magic, the Orlando Predators of the Arena Football League and be home to major concerts, NCAA tourneys and potentially political conventions will be completed in the fall of 2010. Construction costs are $380 million and the total cost will be $480 million, including the land. The Magic pledged to city and Orange County leaders in July when the funding measure was approved to cover any cost overruns.
The City of Orlando has three weeks to finalize the design schematics; then the project will move into design development. Civic leaders will again analyze the progress of the plans in March, and groundbreaking will begin in July.
"Everything has been done to ensure this facility lives up to the expectations of the Magic and the City of Orlando," said Magic chief operating officer Alex Martins. "We will design an events center that will attract any major event that will play in a facility of comparable size, be it an NCAA Tournament event or, to its grandest extent, the national convention of a political party. We're bringing in all of the experts to tell us what the needs are of those industries to meet those expectations."
Martins said the number of arenas he's studied across the country are "well into the hundreds," and the Magic used several ideas that already exist in other facilities. But Brad Clark, HOK Sport's senior designer, said most of those ideas helped the team learn what not to do with its facility. Also, the events center will be one of the first green, LEEDS-certified arenas in the country, Martins said.
HOK and the Magic also worked to make the arena look unique to architecture in central Florida. That meant the inclusion of open-air balconies. One of them, located near the midpoint of the tower on the northeast corner of the facility, will be 10,000 square feet. It will sit at 42 feet off the ground, some 3 feet higher than the nearby interstate. A sky bar and rooftop patio will sit at 115 feet and offer views of the city. And portions of the tower and patios will be open year-round, even when events aren't being held inside the facility.
"The iconic tower at the corner of Church and Hughey represents the potential for a new symbol for Orlando," Clark said. "It will become recognizable as part of Orlando. … It's a building of 800,000 square feet and you don't hide that, so we're trying to celebrate it. We want it to take its place on the skyline. We view it as a 360-degree building."
Inside the arena, the Magic and HOK worked to make the facility as flexible as possible. Whereas Amway Arena was financially obsolete the day it opened in 1989 because its 26 luxury boxes line the upper level of the arena, the new facility should have the flexibility to withstand the test of time, Martins said.
The facility, which will hold 18,500 spectators for basketball, 17,200 for arena football and 19,000 for concerts, will have 56 midlevel suites, 1,428 club seats and 328 loge seats. Those designations can fluctuate as demand changes, Martins said, allowing the arena to be suitable to ebbs and flows of the market.
"These architects are tired of hearing us say we've got to design flexibility into this building," Martins joked. "They've told me this is the most complex interior bowl they've ever designed because it's designed with the future and maximum flexibility in mind — so as the market changes, we can easily adjust. We can change the type of amenities that the patron is looking for."
And it will offer more than just basketball to some fans. There will be six party clubs and five banquet rooms on various levels. There will be a full-service restaurant overlooking the event floor available to all fans. Fan experiences and kid zones will also be there, and there will be 37 restrooms compared to just eight at Amway Arena.
"We've worked on projects all over the country, and I can tell you that this is the most innovative, creative and exciting project that we've been a part of," said Shreve of HOK Sport. "We're not just building a building; we're creating a place. We love the site because it has exposure to I-4 and Church Street, and it allows us to create a special icon for the city."
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/magic/2007-12-11-arena-plans_N.htm
ORLANDO — On nights when the Orlando Magic are playing in the new events center by 2010, a glass enclosed 116-foot tower at the northeast corner of the facility will be aglow in blue light.
The tower, positioned at the corners of Church Street and Hughey Avenue, will offer patio views of nearby Interstate 4 and another balcony at the top will give patrons shots of downtown Orlando's skyline.
The tower idea, taken from a concept at Orlando's former Union Station rail yards, is just one of the features that the City of Orlando and the Magic hope will make the new arena unique and visually striking to the eye.
"We want to bring a lot of the excitement and energy to the outside of the building, so when you come up to it it's not going to be some generic box with a basketball game inside," said John Shreve, principal architect for HOK Sport. "It's going to be extremely dynamic on the outside. Church Street is going to feel like a stage, and everybody is an actor. We're going to have balconies, terraces, lights and escalators. We think these are the things that make this a unique building in Orlando."
What will also make the facility unique to Orlando is that the new events center will be 800,000 square feet, more than double the size of the 367,000-square-foot Amway Arena that the Magic have played in the past 18 years. And whereas Amway's exterior is made mostly of concrete, the new design incorporates a 20,000-square-foot glass front facing Church Street and the potentially iconic tower near I-4.
The facility that will house the Magic, the Orlando Predators of the Arena Football League and be home to major concerts, NCAA tourneys and potentially political conventions will be completed in the fall of 2010. Construction costs are $380 million and the total cost will be $480 million, including the land. The Magic pledged to city and Orange County leaders in July when the funding measure was approved to cover any cost overruns.
The City of Orlando has three weeks to finalize the design schematics; then the project will move into design development. Civic leaders will again analyze the progress of the plans in March, and groundbreaking will begin in July.
"Everything has been done to ensure this facility lives up to the expectations of the Magic and the City of Orlando," said Magic chief operating officer Alex Martins. "We will design an events center that will attract any major event that will play in a facility of comparable size, be it an NCAA Tournament event or, to its grandest extent, the national convention of a political party. We're bringing in all of the experts to tell us what the needs are of those industries to meet those expectations."
Martins said the number of arenas he's studied across the country are "well into the hundreds," and the Magic used several ideas that already exist in other facilities. But Brad Clark, HOK Sport's senior designer, said most of those ideas helped the team learn what not to do with its facility. Also, the events center will be one of the first green, LEEDS-certified arenas in the country, Martins said.
HOK and the Magic also worked to make the arena look unique to architecture in central Florida. That meant the inclusion of open-air balconies. One of them, located near the midpoint of the tower on the northeast corner of the facility, will be 10,000 square feet. It will sit at 42 feet off the ground, some 3 feet higher than the nearby interstate. A sky bar and rooftop patio will sit at 115 feet and offer views of the city. And portions of the tower and patios will be open year-round, even when events aren't being held inside the facility.
"The iconic tower at the corner of Church and Hughey represents the potential for a new symbol for Orlando," Clark said. "It will become recognizable as part of Orlando. … It's a building of 800,000 square feet and you don't hide that, so we're trying to celebrate it. We want it to take its place on the skyline. We view it as a 360-degree building."
Inside the arena, the Magic and HOK worked to make the facility as flexible as possible. Whereas Amway Arena was financially obsolete the day it opened in 1989 because its 26 luxury boxes line the upper level of the arena, the new facility should have the flexibility to withstand the test of time, Martins said.
The facility, which will hold 18,500 spectators for basketball, 17,200 for arena football and 19,000 for concerts, will have 56 midlevel suites, 1,428 club seats and 328 loge seats. Those designations can fluctuate as demand changes, Martins said, allowing the arena to be suitable to ebbs and flows of the market.
"These architects are tired of hearing us say we've got to design flexibility into this building," Martins joked. "They've told me this is the most complex interior bowl they've ever designed because it's designed with the future and maximum flexibility in mind — so as the market changes, we can easily adjust. We can change the type of amenities that the patron is looking for."
And it will offer more than just basketball to some fans. There will be six party clubs and five banquet rooms on various levels. There will be a full-service restaurant overlooking the event floor available to all fans. Fan experiences and kid zones will also be there, and there will be 37 restrooms compared to just eight at Amway Arena.
"We've worked on projects all over the country, and I can tell you that this is the most innovative, creative and exciting project that we've been a part of," said Shreve of HOK Sport. "We're not just building a building; we're creating a place. We love the site because it has exposure to I-4 and Church Street, and it allows us to create a special icon for the city."