HUGE Donation from Koch

[shocks02]

Link to renderings.

Am I correct that the location of the student services building in those renderings appears to be right where the new Shocker Hall is located?

Looks northwest of Shocker Hall to me. Shocker Hall is directly south of Cessna Stadium. This looks mostly west of Cessna Stadium.

[RoyalShock]

Wonder if 3Gs can get Chuck to add another zero to that total!

Then we would really be talking! :D

$4.50 million?

That's not much more than $4.5 million, but it might allow for less stale nachos.

[Hurley]

The gift Is 30% of the 15 million sought for athletics improvements. Pretty damn generous, IMO.

I heard a rumor that there has been a second sizeable donation recently made by a party who is NOT Koch Industries. It's a great day....

[Steeleshocker]

If you download that slideshow off the athletic department website (link above), you can save off the images and get an even more zoomed in view of the schematics. Looks like they got 3G and Sexton's offices mixed up (I keed).

[Manhattan_Shocker]

I think a big thing about these suites is that they will free up the corporate seats that often go unused. Push the rich people upstairs and put more people in the seats close to the action. Personally I would rather sit close than in a box anyday. After watching Arch Madness last year from a box, and then the Kentucky game in the lower level, I'll go for the lowel level every time.

[Shock Top]

There looks like a lot of space unused still once the boxes are added.

I know it's the roof of the practice facility (I believe), but maybe they can add a party porch or something.

I don't know, I'm just spitballing here!

[WuShock16]

I think a big thing about these suites is that they will free up the corporate seats that often go unused. Push the rich people upstairs and put more people in the seats close to the action. Personally I would rather sit close than in a box anyday. After watching Arch Madness last year from a box, and then the Kentucky game in the lower level, I'll go for the lowel level every time.

The boxes won't push corporate types upstairs. It will just add more of the corporate fans in the building. This isn't being done to give better seats to Average Joe.

[SHOCKvalue]

I think a big thing about these suites is that they will free up the corporate seats that often go unused. Push the rich people upstairs and put more people in the seats close to the action. Personally I would rather sit close than in a box anyday. After watching Arch Madness last year from a box, and then the Kentucky game in the lower level, I'll go for the lowel level every time.

The thing about CKA is that due to the fact they carried over the round design all the way to the floor-seat interface, the best seats in the house aren't actually those high-dollar seats that run "courtside", but are actually the low seats in the corners (I'm sure they aren't cheap either). I thank the people who pay big money to sit down low and courtside in CKA, but I for one think those seats actually kind of suck, especially considering their price. I wish in this facilities fund drive we just kicked off that they included a plan to somehow "square off" the courtside seats so they run parallel and much closer to the court.

TCU has a smaller version of CKA (with the same related problem), and they did just that recently by lowering the court.

TCU before:



TCU after:



I don't think it looks that bad.

The question remains (at least in my own noggin): Does the distance from the court for high-dollar "courtside" seats in CKA limit their value? I think this is as relevant of option to employ (for seat license revenue) as the Frankenstein suites that were just revealed in renderings.

[AdamCC]

My only concern is my top row season tickets. What will happen to them?

[Manhattan_Shocker]

The boxes won't push corporate types upstairs. It will just add more of the corporate fans in the building. This isn't being done to give better seats to Average Joe.

True but it might have the result I'm talking about. I think we will see less corporate seats in the stands. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I would think a good percentage of the corporate sponsors will replace their seats with boxes now.

[ShockBand]

My only concern is my top row season tickets. What will happen to them?

You will become some fat cat's b... er, cabin boy.

[Shock Top]

The thing about CKA is that due to the fact they carried over the round design all the way to the floor-seat interface, the best seats in the house aren't actually those high-dollar seats that run "courtside", but are actually the low seats in the corners (I'm sure they aren't cheap either). I thank the people who pay big money to sit down low and courtside in CKA, but I for one think those seats actually kind of suck, especially considering their price. I wish in this facilities fund drive we just kicked off that they included a plan to somehow "square off" the courtside seats so they run parallel and much closer to the court.

TCU has a smaller version of CKA (with the same related problem), and they did just that recently by lowering the court.

TCU before:




TCU after:



I don't think it looks that bad.

The question remains (at least in my own noggin): Does the distance from the court for high-dollar "courtside" seats in CKA limit their value? I think this is as relevant of option to employ as the Frankenstein suites that were just revealed in renderings.

This!

I would love to see this done as well.

[SHOCKvalue]

And since this looks to be the place of relevant convo on SN for the fantastic developments this morning, I'm going to copy and paste my earlier thoughts from another low-traffic thread to this one. Sorry for the redundancy to those that are seeing both:

First things first. This is awesome news! Another step forward in cementing ourselves as a leader in the ranks of the non-P5. As much flak as Koch gets nationally (irrationally, I might add), the company and family really do "pay it forward" back into the Wichita community.

That said... the conceptual designs for the suites are actually even worse than I imagined. I kind of figured there was no way to make their addition a positive step forward aesthetically for CKA, but alas stacks of greenbacks do win most wars. But look at this mess - a miscarriage of architecture. Part of the same team that brought us the steaming pile of unsymmetrical design that is IBA, stands ready, willing, and able to work that same magic on our jewel CKA. No, no, NO! Please make it stop, and then kill it with fire!

I understand final design and construction can and will differ from what is seen above, but the fact that the unbalanced mess below even got out of someone's past the morning bathroom download is terrifying. At a minimum, the powers that be at least find the below to be reasonable and palatable.





Do it right, or don't do it at all. PLEASE!

If you're a praying man, ask for this as a best case scenario:



Just 8 suites, but at least they'd be symmetrical and aligned with the court.

[shocktown]

And since this looks to be the place of relevant convo on SN for the fantastic developments this morning, I'm going to copy and paste my earlier thoughts from another low-traffic thread to this one. Sorry for the redundancy to those that are seeing both:

First things first. This is awesome news! Another step forward in cementing ourselves as a leader in the ranks of the non-P5. As much flak as Koch gets nationally (irrationally, I might add), the company and family really do "pay it forward" back into the Wichita community.

That said... the conceptual designs for the suites are actually even worse than I imagined. I kind of figured there was no way to make their addition a positive step forward aesthetically for CKA, but alas stacks of greenbacks do win most wars. But look at this mess - a miscarriage of architecture. Part of the same team that brought us the steaming pile of unsymmetrical design that is IBA, stands ready, willing, and able to work that same magic on our jewel CKA. No, no, NO! Please make it stop, and then kill it with fire!

I understand final design and construction can and will differ from what is seen above, but the fact that the unbalanced mess below even got out of someone's past the morning bathroom download is terrifying. At a minimum, the powers that be at least find the below to be reasonable and palatable.





Wow, this is all great!

Since this project appears to be all privately funded, maybe this time you can fund the project to meet the upgrades you deem appropriate, or at least donate your firms time to design and draw up the working plans for the project.

That way you have skin in the game and can rightly say...

Do it right, or don't do it at all. PLEASE!

If you're a praying man, ask for this as a best case scenario:



Just 8 suites, but at least they'd be symmetrical and aligned with the court.

.

[1972Shocker]

My only concern is my top row season tickets. What will happen to them?

My guess is that the arena will be re-seated again once the Party Suites are added. Might be the time to boost your points if you can.