Interesting story on a D-I college's sports arena....and even more KUDOS to Bradley and their building project..

University of Alaska-Anchorage had been using an older, 1000 seat arena for decades...
Then the Regents voted to begin study and plans for a new arena. At first the plan looked to be a $30 million project, then the costs ballooned to $70-80 million, and are now said to be well over $100 million.

BUT -- here are some of the features about this project for a new athletic arena that stand in stark contrast to what Bradley has gone through the past several years.

Remember -- the Bradley project started soon after Jim Les arrived with planning and fund raising -- and never ONCE ever remotely considered relying on public funds or taxpayer dollars. The Alaska-Anchorage project also started several years ago but continues to hammer away at the Alaska state legislature in order to hopefully land at least 1/3 of their funding from taxpayers' pockets.

Both arenas and project are about the same size (around 5000 seating capacity) and sound similar...
BUT -- where Bradley's project is almost entirely done -- the UAA project -- is still in the drawing board stage -- unable to even get off the ground....especially until the state kicks in with the public funds.
Even the large part of the funding beyond what comes from state coffers would be done through public bond initiatives.

BUT -- here are a few observations I make when seeing these articles...

-Bradley has a tremendous and generous fan base to come up with their $100 million-plus without having to ask the citizens to foot the bill.
Bradley's donors have done a tremendous job.

-Bradley's staff and people -- all the way from the top to the bottom -- and especially Coach Les were incredibly important and instrumental in landing those pledges and funds. Seems UAA has wealthy grads and benefactors - but they are not well organized nor are the kicking in with pledges.

-as can be seen from the 3rd link below -- the public way of doing things always means politics gets tied in and one project gets held up when the politicians begin using the projects as trade bait or pawns for their other pet projects.

-And in he end - the Bradley project went from the idea-stage to drawing board to fund raising to near-completion in a little under 6 years.
In contrast, the project in one of the wealthiest states, even with popular opinion behind the concept and politicians pushing it forward -- still has dragged on nearly that same length of time and isn't even at the drawing board stage yet!
Again - kudos to all the folks that made it happen at Bradley...
And -- in case you're interested - the final link below is a list of those important people !!

Maybe all government spenders should take note -- private enterprise can do a better job, more efficient and more timely - than when things are government funded! Government giving money away is largely wasteful and inefficient. I can give plenty more evidence of this if you want.


http://juneauempire.com/state/2011-06-04/regents-approve-109m-sports-arena-university-alaska-anchorage-total-funding

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_MvEyRYHhzEJ:www.adn.com/2010/04/12/1223299http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif/uaa-gets-boost-for-new-sports.html+anchorage+arena+funding&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

http://mobile.newsminer.com/view/full_story/4962606/article-Despite-pressure-from-Anchorage--University-of-Alaska-regents-push-Fairbanks-science-building

http://www.bradley.edu/pubs/HonorRollProof.pdf

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=3635396