New Kings Arena Design Concepts

I believe the City's contribution is capped and overages fall on the King's ownership group. With them taking the overage cost they need to make sure they can get their return back. They get their return back and that help ensures the City gets theirs also.

That is correct. Cost overruns are on the private side, not the City.

Basketball first of course.... But I think they will build it to accommodate Hockey at perhaps a reduced attendance. Maybe 15k good seats for Hockey and 17k for Basketball. That way it would keep the good sightlines for both and also be primarily a basketball arena.

I want to like Hockey, but we would need a team for me to be interested.

That looks sweet! Can't wait to see it in real life!!!

Cost overruns and change orders that increase cost are the responsibility of Kings ownership (Sacramento Basketball Holdings, LLC).

I'm pretty sure there will is at least a glass wall (with doors) between the indoor bridge and the outside balcony.

Early plans were to have 9,000 of the 17,000 seats in the lower sunken bowl. You would walk in at plaza level and then walk down to access those seats.

Basketball is THE anchor tenant that makes this arena even possible. When the Maloofs backed out of an arena deal (thank goodness), the city talked to AEG about building an arena without the team. AEG made it clear that the arena would not financially pencil without an anchor tenant like the Kings. To me, this was why it was important to keep the Kings. Not just for Kings fans, but for Sacramento to retain an arena for all the other events. STA would not have survived, if the Kings left. Heck, Hansen would have owned it.

Will another type of team ever play in the new arena? Maybe, maybe not, but there is no other team right now stepping up to help finance an arena and then give it to the city, in return for a long term lease. Basically the city is going to own a $448 million arena, including the land under it (value unknown), for $258 million.

Let's not get too greedy either. In the midst of arena research and reading studies (until I wanted to poke my eyes out), I read one study about cities that could support more than one major league sport team. It was considered that Sacramento couldn't, at least not now. One of our biggest problems is the almost complete lack of corporate base here. Another problem is TV rights in Sacramento just don't provide much revenue. The Kings have always been at the lower end of the league in the value of its TV contracts.

Maybe a reinvigorated downtown will help wIth some of that, but we can't count our chickens before they hatch. I actually think MLS would be a great fit in Sacramento. I think we have great weather and the demographics to support MLS. I would love it if they could build a soccer stadium in the rail yards. Perfect place and would add even more to our downtown.

Some more pictures of the concept/arena, must say it looks pretty darn awesome.

http://cowbellkingdom.com/new-rendering-released-for-kings-new-arena/

Never a fan of this design. When you go with something that's too "ultra-modern" it always starts showing its age the quickest.

Not my 86 honda CRX. Was sporty futuristic when it came out thirty years ago, and still is!

Whatever that tall building is in front of the entrance (hotel? apartments? team offices?) is a useful bounding device to create a defined outdoor plaza area. Its kind of an inartistic building, but its a wise choice in an urban area. You have a pool, rooftop overlooks, put some restaraunts and shops in that bulding face and you actually have a chance to have people come by early and hang out until gametime in a contained "Kings' area. Team is winning its sort of a natural concentrated build excitement with fellow Kings fans area. Be great before a big playoff game.

Sort of like me! Damm!

It's a mixture of 250 hotel rooms, housing on the top 4 levels and retail on the bottom. But it does work well with the arena and creates it's own entertainment environment that doesn't need an event in the arena to keep it going.

Great to see that the team is committed to quickly developing the area surrounding the arena with a nice mix of retail, office space and housing, as well as a refresher of what remains of the Downtown Plaza.

Although I understand the economics don't work, it'd be great to see a lot more housing be added in order to stimulate/support retail activity during non-event evenings. DT Sac can still be a ghost town w/ many businesses struggling to stay open after work hours, and I'm not sure the residents filling those 69 condo units will do the trick. Agree this could use a little polishing on the visual aesthetic as well...although I'm sure the planning commission will have some influence to be seen.

Either way, it's a step in the right direction in terms of revitalizing downtown and great to see this moving forward!

Waiting to see what kinda new nightlife will be developed in the area...

A housing and retail project should be under construction shortly just across the street from the arena development by a different developer. Financing in place and I believe the plans have been approved. Will likely be more housing close by on the Capitol Mall at 3rd Street, if CalPers gets going on doing something.

Wasn't sure where to post this but:

Eric Quintana @r8erfaneq
@carmichaeldave @GrantNapearshow first panel for the arena pulled out of its form today! #herewebuild pic.twitter.com/GIFpLJpI9A


Doesnt seem real that concrete molds are already being made. Wow!

These are not the forms, they are the panels for the structure itself. One thing to remember is precast concrete structure members have to be cast and then cured for a certain length of time to get a minimum concrete strength prior to use in construction. Also, they will be casting multiple panels from each form if they can to reduce the number of forms they have to make. So they have to start cranking these things out in order to have a stockpile of elements to work with later when construction goes vertical!

the whole idea reminds me of Milwaukee a little bit. They have the nice hotel right near by. You look out over the stadium, and even when you're there for business, you're thinking it might be nice to catch a game

So this happened today

Anyone know what kind of piles they are using for structure support? The engineer in me is curious. They aren't driving piles and they are pouring concrete, so likely CIDH, auger-cast, or CISS. I don't recall seeing any steel shells on site, so not CISS. I just checked the webcams to see what I might be able to tell from that but everything is fogged in.

I have no idea but I did hear something about them screwing in the piles, which is quieter. Can't even recall where I heard that though.

Strange. Best view this morning of the entire site appears to be here:


No steel shells or large piles/auger pieces apparent. Appears about a dozen or more piles have been installed at the bottom of the screen with concrete pile caps going in. I don't see any steel rebar cages sitting around, so either they are off screen somewhere or they are bringing them in as needed and not stockpiled on site. I can't imagine they would use unreinforced concrete foundations!

Just....curious.

Micropile drilling

That set me to google to find a source and came up with some interesting stuff! Looks like micropiles were being used for portions where they didn't demolish the structure (parking area, etc.) which makes total sense, as they can be expensive and typically used in limited access areas. However, those are typically not the choice of pile system for large open areas such as the excavation they have now. And it looks like they are using a variation of the auger-cast pile (Omega Pile) for that based on this:

http://ink361.com/app/users/ig-4219...rkamaic/photos/ig-870389145922961051_42196534

Cool.

Ah. I learned something new today. Very cool. Now I know what I'm looking at when I look at that video.

I went to an engineering society meeting I belong to tonight and the presentation was on the arena. Obviously I was very interested in the talk!

They had some discussion on various engineering aspects as well as the 3D structural modeling done for the facility. Some interesting tidbits (for me anyways, as an engineer):

• They had to deal with multiple generations of previous construction at the site, including some piles and foundations they ran into during demolition that they had no idea were buried there. As such, many of the structure foundations had to be re-designed on the fly to accommodate the stuff they ran into.
• The City won't allow an active dewatering system for any projects in the City (used to, but not anymore). As such, the lower areas are designed as a bathtub and the piles are designed for both tension and compression loads depending on the groundwater elevation at any particular time. Like a giant boat, the structure could float if the piles didn't hold it down.
• The trees and landscaping around the facility are "floating" above open areas - there are parking levels, etc., below them.
• They chose to re-use much of the existing parking areas in the area of the practice facility, however they are not sure if that was a good idea. They had to verify the capacity of the existing foundations and retrofit the areas they kept, which was time-consuming and difficult work. It did save some demolition costs, etc., but basically it sounded like a wash overall.
• The northernmost structure demolished was the first project one of the main architects ever worked on, so it was bittersweet for him to see an old project of his demolished to make way for this.
• The Kings requested that the first column placed was to be purple. Unfortunately, they requested this the night before the column was to be hoisted into place. So they had to run to Home Depot and buy all the purple paint they could find to meet the request and paint it late that night.
• The architect brought up the artwork piece planned for the site - the audience was, shall we say, not in support of it. At all. But he said it was pushed through by Mr. Friedman at the time because Mr. Friedman wanted it there. The architect and design team didn't sound impressed by the selection either. They said that while it should be stable once installed, it might move a bit if it got very windy. It is being designed (and manufactured?) in Germany - the engineering for it was sent over in German from the project engineer/manager and they had to translate the documents.
• There are no screens in place for the large hanger glass doors that can be raised. They are (at this time) planning on using (high frequency ?) noise (and other active measures), etc., as deterrent for birds and bats to enter the structure when the doors are open. I don't know if this would work for mosquitoes and flies though. It sounds like this is still being worked out right now.

Those were the most interesting tidbits. I'm sure there was more, but I wasn't taking notes, just listening and enjoying the fact that this thing is moving forward full speed ahead!

Is there an opposition side fighting this or have they all basically given up?

There is still 1 lawsuit that is holding up issuing bonds, but that will likely be settled in order to save the City money in the long run by being able to issue bonds now instead of waiting until the lawsuit winds through the court. The reason is interest rates are expected to rise soon and they want to take advantage of the very low rates available now.