Thursday, August 11, 2016

Upgrade

Despite having a population of almost 1.1 million within its metropolitan area, Rochester is often labeled as a small town.  While the whole "big-city amenities/small town charm" mantra has its merits, one can't help but wonder if Rochester is sometimes held back by its label (and associated mentality.)  Here are a few facts:

  • Rochester is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the country without at least one NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA Division I men's basketball, or NCAA Division I football team. 
  • While smaller metro areas such as Omaha, Syracuse, Des Moines, Spokane, Tulsa, Wichita, and Boise can host NCAA men's basketball tournament games in March, Rochester apparently has no hope.
  • Despite being a remarkably musically-oriented bunch, Rochesterians routinely travel to Buffalo for big-name concerts such as Coldplay, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Bruno Mars, etc.
  • Rochester's arena has a reasonable group of tenants, among which one has a deep-pocketed owner.

Without knowing all (or even any) of the details, the following would seem to be a reasonable conclusion: given all the potential options for wasting our tax dollars, wasting them on a new arena with increased seating capacity is a necessary upgrade.

5 comments:

  1. While I would like the arena to be upgraded, I just wanted to mention that Rochester does have Division I hockey at RIT (men’s and women’s) and the men’s team plays their Brick City Weekend game at Blue Cross Arena every year. Also Blue Cross Arena hosts the Division I Atlantic Hockey tournament every year. And if you prefer basketball, the Blue Cross Arena has often hosted Saint Bonaventure games. I wouldn’t mind having more games in town, but we often overlook what we do have.

    ReplyDelete
  2. RIT Division I hockey is a huge asset, and I enjoy going to the yearly St. Bonaventure hoops game. I just think that Rochester sometimes needs to aim higher.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't even think we need a brand new arena. Last time the Blue Cross Arena was redone(1998?) there were said to be plans to make the upper bowl continue all the way around but were scrapped because there would have been "too many" seats. In my perfect world, you go back and do the entire upper bowl AND tear off the whole roof and put a new domed roof on because one drawback of the current BCA is the roof is too low for many acts/events. Do both of those, upgrade the amenities inside the arena, and what we have would be just fine for large concerts. I feel like the arena's current location is perfect and would hate for them to build something brand new outside of downtown.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is a great point about the location...it is perfect. So maybe renovation could work as long as the final product puts the arena into a new tier (i.e. I wouldn't see the point of making it look nicer, only to have the same ongoing limitations.)

      Delete