SPRINGFIELD – More than 11,000 seats, a grand entrance, 22 private suites, more than 100 loge seats, 55 “Jack Nicholson courtside seats,” a Hall of Fame, a team souvenir store, a ticket office, and a 4,500-square-foot club. 

Those are some of the features that will be included in the new JQH Arena at Missouri State University. University officials, along with the design teams from the project architectural firms of Ellerbe-Becket and Pellham Phillips, announced the major design elements during a news conference today (Sept. 12) on the Missouri State campus. 

JQH Arena, named in honor of Missouri State alumnus and Springfield, Mo.-based hotel developer John Q. Hammons, will be built on the parking lot just east of Hammons Student Center, with a connecting corridor between the facilities. Ground-breaking for the project is set for December 2006, with the completion target date of November 2008 in time for the 2008-09 basketball season.

At the news conference, Missouri State University President Michael T. Nietzel also announced a revised budget for the project. The estimated project cost at the time of the announcement in February was $60 million. The original “wish list” for the Arena design increased that estimate to a figure in excess of $75 million. For the past several months, University officials have been working with the architects to reduce the cost. 

The design presented today will cost $67 million. Of the $7 million increase over the original estimate, Hammons has agreed to add $5 million to his gift commitment, making it a total of $30 million, the largest in Missouri State history. The other $2 million will come from the revenue generated from Arena activities and additional private gifts.

“We worked very hard to get the cost as low as possible,” said Nietzel. “We reduced our wish list and went through a rigorous process to get the project cost down to a level we could afford.”

For example, the design includes shell space for home locker rooms, offices, and a training room which can be completed later, but for now the current Hammons Student Center facilities will be used. The design has moved from a two concourse design to a one concourse design. And the number of seats has been reduced from the original goal of 12,000 to 11,000, although the design allows for up to 1,500 seats to be added at a later date.

“We made several changes to contain our costs,” said Nietzel, “and we stayed in communication with Mr. Hammons throughout the process. Every time we met, Mr. Hammons told me, ‘If you need more help to build the kind of arena we want and Springfield and the University deserves, let me know.’ That point did come and Mr. Hammons committed the additional $5 million to make this dream a reality. The new budget is $67 million.

One of my goals is to find ways to have for our students and faculty the level of facilities they deserve. If the Lewis and Clark Initiative is ultimately approved, we will dramatically improve our academic and lab space. That, coupled with the JQH Arena and a new Recreation Center, will begin to raise the level of facilities for Missouri State University.”

During the news conference today, university officials made these points:

• The court in JQH Arena will run east and west, and the seats will be arranged in a “horseshoe” configuration, allowing future         expansion of approximately 1,500 on the west end of the seating bowl.
• Of the 11,000 total seats, more than 9,600 will be chair back seats, with the student section of more than 1,300 on the west end      being retractable bleacher back seats. When there are concerts or other special events in the Arena, these end zone bleachers      will be retracted so the stage can be set. Students had requested the bleacher back seats so they could stand during the game.
• More than 6,000 of the 11,000 seats will be in the “lower bowl,” which is almost three times the number of lower level seats in         Hammons Student Center.
• Seven rows of floor seats on both the north and south sides of the Arena will retract to allow space for two high school-length         practice courts, which will run north and south.
• The concourses around the JQH Arena will be more than 20 feet wide and behind the seating bowl, compared to the                         approximately 5-foot-wide interior concourses at Hammons Student Center.
• To date, almost all of the 22 private suites, each of which seats at least 16, have been reserved, and university officials expect to     soon develop a waiting list for suite leases. The base price of the suites varies from $32,500 per year to $37,500 per year,                depending on the length of the lease. One reason the suites are so popular is their proximity to the floor – 18 rows up,                       compared to the usual 20-30 in most arenas.
• In addition, three game-day suites, each seating more than 30 people, will be available.
• JQH Arena will qualify to host women’s NCAA post-season games, but the original 12,000-seat goal to qualify for a men’s event     turned out to be a misleading number. To qualify for a post-season event, the venue must guarantee a “net of at least 12,000.”     With the number of seats that are used for media and other purposes and, therefore, not counted by the NCAA toward the                12,000, an arena must have far more than 12,000 seats to satisfy the minimum number required.
• To allow for future expansion and amenities, but to remain within budget, the design includes more than 12,000 square feet of      shell space that can be finished later for such things as home team locker rooms, offices, a training room, and storage. Until the shell space can be finished, the Bears and Lady Bears will continue to use their current lockers in Hammons Student Center         and walk through a corridor to the new arena. The JQH Arena will include guest locker rooms as a provision for meeting NCAA      tournament specifications.
• The Grand Entrance will be on the southeast corner of the arena near the corner of John Q. Hammons Parkway and Monroe           Street. That will be the location of an enlarged ticket office, guest services office, and the team souvenir store.
• University officials expect to install a new state-of-the-art video scoreboard as the result of a private donation.
• Compared to Hammons Student Center, there will be significantly more disabled seating, seating for concerts, restrooms,             concessions stands, and elevators in the new Arena.

The JQH Arena Steering Committee continues to work on many issues related to the facility, including ticket prices, seat assessments, parking, financing, and marketing. Those issues will be addressed over the next 26 months according to the master timeline.