more on the arena
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07318/833624-52.stm
New Penguins arena design unveiled
The team's design firm says the facility incorporates elements from nearly every major hockey venue in the nation
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
By Mark Belko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Penguins unveiled their master plan for the new arena yesterday, one that will feature retail space on Fifth Avenue and a 500-space parking garage for fans and commuters as well as a state-of-the art 18,500-seat venue for hockey games and other events.
The signature piece of the $290 million building will be a glass atrium that will stretch between Fifth and Centre avenues and run from 40 to 80 feet high, offering sweeping views of the Downtown skyline. An outdoor plaza will overlook the city on the Fifh Avenue side, some 80 feet above ground.
"The site is absolutely the best in Pittsburgh," Penguins Chief Executive Officer Ken Sawyer said yesterday.
Inside, the arena will offer the cream of the crop in terms of amenities, including a high-definition video scoreboard, wider and more comfortable seats, and more spacious concourses.
Parts of the building also will feature "open" concourses, where fans will be able to grab a hot dog or a drink while watching the action unfold on the ice below.
"We are picking the best of the best and putting it in this building," said Wayne C. London, principal for HOK Sport, the arena designer.
Mr. Sawyer said the Penguins visited virtually every National Hockey League arena in the country, some more than once, in gathering ideas for their new home. They've incorporated elements from venues in Minnesota, Boston, Phoenix and North Carolina.
"No one arena is the absolute. We've looked at them all. We liked elements of every one," he said.
The Penguins discussed the details yesterday in submitting a master development plan for the arena to the city planning commission for approval. It includes not only the arena itself, but also a four-level, 500-space parking garage to be built adjacent to it, a 150-space parking lot and staging area for events, 2.5 acres of green space, and the former St. Francis Central Hospital site, which is being reserved for future development.
Mr. Sawyer said one potential use for the St. Francis site, along Centre Avenue, could be a hotel.
The garage, which will be attached to the arena, will be open to commuters during the day. It will be reserved for season ticket holders, suite holders and sponsors during events.
The Penguins are planning to add retail space along Fifth Avenue to blend with the commercial, office and restaurant uses on the opposite side of the street.
The main entrance to the new arena will be a plaza at Washington Place and Centre Avenue. There also will be an entrance on Centre, and a third at Washington Place and Fifth Avenue, where fans will enter at street level and take escalators to the main concourse.
While the Penguins considered a number of different schemes for the arena, they eventually settled on a more traditional design that looks a bit like a cross between PNC Park and the proposed North Shore casino.
The building ended up being mostly rectangular.
Along with the wall of glass on the west side of the building will be a mostly brick facade on the south side, facing Fifth Avenue, as architects tried to create a design "that fits in with the neighborhood," Mr. Sawyer said. He believes the overall effect will be "exceptional."
Mr. Sawyer said the team is still trying to keep the cost of the arena at $290 million without sacrificing quality. It is on pace to get into the heart of the construction by next summer, with earth and foundation work expected to start in the spring. The arena is on target to be completed by the start of the 2010-11 hockey season.
The arena master plan will be the subject of a briefing before the planning commission Nov. 27. That will be followed by a public hearing Dec . 11, with a vote set for Jan. 11.
Mark Belko can be reached at
[email protected] or 412-263-1262.
...
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_537817.html
Penguins say arena will fit in
By Andrew Conte
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The new Uptown arena will help make the Penguins better neighbors this time around, officials said Tuesday.
Despite having 18,500 seats and an eight-story glass wall facing the city, the arena should look like it fits with the buildings around it, team CEO Ken Sawyer said.
"What we're trying to do is match the character of the neighborhood," he said.
The team submitted its arena designs yesterday to the city Planning Commission, which is expected to hear a briefing Nov. 27, take a preliminary vote next month and consider final approval in January.
Team officials hope to break ground before summer and open for the 2010 season.
Surrounded by parking lots, Mellon Arena has a more suburban design, said Don Carter, president of Urban Design Associates, a Downtown-based consulting group hired by the team and city. The new arena will fit into an urban plan.
The city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority plans to raze Mellon Arena for a 28-acre neighborhood development after the new building opens.
"A lot of people have had some input," Carter said. "This is the (design) most people were comfortable with."
After meetings with residents, public officials and other stakeholders, the arena designs changed from a contemporary river theme to a more traditional look, said Wayne London, an architect with HOK Sport of Kansas City.
The proposed arena would have more brick on its exterior and fewer contemporary metal panels. It would have 2.5 acres of green space, with outdoor plazas for community events. Along Fifth Avenue, the facade would be broken up to look more like nearby buildings.
A glass atrium facing Downtown would stretch along Washington Avenue and be topped by an outdoor balcony with restaurants.
A four-story, 500-space parking garage would sit on the opposite side of the arena with a surface parking lot and space for a hotel.
Penguins officials traveled around the league to see what they wanted inside the building.
They picked the top-down entry points from Minnesota, open lounges in North Carolina, the larger seat sizes in Phoenix and Boston's high-definition electronic screen, Sawyer said.
The arena would have wider interior concourses than Mellon Arena, as well as places where fans could access concession stands and still be able to watch the action on the ice.
"We are picking the best of the best and putting it in this building," London said.
While the team is trying to stick to a $290 million budget, Sawyer said the price could go up before construction managers set a guaranteed maximum price next summer.
The public would share in cost increases up to $310 million. After that, the Penguins will pick up any cost overruns.
The state is paying $8.5 million upfront and $7.5 million a year for 30 years. Majestic Star Casino agreed to pay $7.5 million a year for 30 years. The team is paying $4.2 million a year toward the arena and $500,000 a year for the parking garage.
Andrew Conte can be reached at
[email protected] or 412-320-7835.
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