Sounds like it will be as nice as PNC Park…lots of details. Just sucks we will have to wait until 2010 to go to it.
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/07318/833624-53.stm
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.