CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The move to renovate or replace North Carolina’s Smith Center isn’t a new initiative launched as other new arenas are being built, beautified or enhanced.

Those talks began more than a decade ago, when UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham likened it to extensively remodeling your house or deciding to build a new one.

The Dean E. Smith Center, which opened in 1986, is a big basketball house. Perhaps too big. Certainly aging.

Among the plans being considered is building a new 16,000-seat arena that can be the home court for both the Tar Heels’ men’s and women’s basketball teams. Or the choice could be to fully renovate the Smith Center, which seats 21,750, adding premium seating and other upgrades, and moving on.

“It’s 40 years old and we are having trouble with some infrastructure things,” Cunningham said in an N&O interview. “The restrooms are inadequate, the concourse is small. No premium. So even if we don’t do any premium or anything significant, we do need to make sure that it’s up to speed for the quality of the program we have.

“It’s really expensive just to do the upkeep we need. That forced us to say, ‘What should we look at?’”

UNC has options

A new arena or extensive renovation was put on the back burner a decade ago. Now, the plans are on a faster track. By next spring, Cunningham said, a decision should be made.

The university is assessing six options:

— Renovate the Smith Center while reducing the seating.

— A Smith Center rebuild on the same site.

— Replacing the Smith Center with an arena built in the adjacent Bowles Lot parking area.

— Building the arena at Odum Village, a former enclave of student housing at the southern end of campus.

— Putting the arena at the Friday Center, an off-campus conference venue.

— An arena built at Carolina North, a research and mixed-use campus planned for 250 acres two miles from the main campus.

'The full analysis'

Opinions on what would be best to do are mixed. UNC men’s basketball coach Hubert Davis was asked recently which option he favored and gave it some thought before answering.

“I will say this. I love every day walking into this building and it says, ‘The Dean Smith Center,’ ” Davis said, smiling. “I love that.”

That could be interpreted, without Davis saying it, as a vote for renovating and staying in an arena where he once played for Smith and the Tar Heels. Many longtime UNC fans might say the same.

UNC chancellor Lee Roberts said he would wait until a feasibility study is completed.

”I know that there are a lot of views, a lot of passion around the topic, and we’ll do what’s best for Carolina over the long term,” Roberts said this seek.

UNC has hired Populous, a global architectural firm with its U.S. base in Kansas City, to submit the feasibility study on all the options, with projected costs, potential for enhanced revenue and other information.

Populous has been involved with several major sports projects, including the Sphere in Las Vegas that cost $2.3 billion to build and has drawn raves.

Cunningham said the university should receive the report sometime this fall. It will be in extensive in providing the particulars of the options, he said, but will not include a recommendation.

“The decision is for us to make,” Cunningham said. “They won’t say, ‘This is the best one’ because they don’t know what to prioritize.

“If we prioritize a financial return, if we prioritize location, if we prioritize student seating … there are a lot of variables as the owner, and you have to decide what’s most important.”

And after that decision?

“It might be, ‘Hey. let’s go down this path further.’ It’s not going to be, ‘Let’s put a shovel in the ground,’ ” Cunningham said. “I think our program and university deserve the full analysis.”

An entertainment center?

The site studies noted parking for the on-campus sites could be accommodated with existing parking lots and garages, while the off-campus sites would call for bus transit for students living on campus. That’s a major concern.

“It will not surprise you that it’s almost unanimous that people want it on campus,” said trustee Ralph Meekins, a Shelby lawyer and former UNC basketball manager. “You certainly hear that feedback. The question is, is there a site? There probably is. And can we afford it? That’s another question.”

Cunningham agreed most people want an arena on campus, but the off-campus sites offer something else: the opportunity to build a mixed-use entertainment district around it.

Think Lenovo Center in Raleigh.

Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon has plans for a $1 billion mixed-use development adjacent to a renovated arena to give fans — whether Canes fans or N.C. State basketball fans — more options than attending games and then leaving.

Cunningham cited Iowa State and Oklahoma as examples of colleges looking at adding multi-use districts. Iowa State has plans for a $200 million “community district” between the football stadium and basketball arena called “CYTown.” At Oklahoma, the plan is for a new development roughly six miles from campus, with restaurants and retail shops plus an 8,000-seat facility for the men’s and women’s gymnastics teams.

“We’re looking at a couple of spots off campus to maybe think about, and is there a bigger economic development that goes along with that,” Cunningham said.

College basketball’s new arenas

In looking at new college basketball arenas built in recent years, the Moody Center at the University of Texas opened in April 2022 with a cost of about $375 million. The on-campus arena seats 10,763 for basketball and has a total capacity of more than 16,000.

Alabama announced plans in February 2022 to build a new 10,000-seat on-campus arena to replace aging Coleman Coliseum, which opened in 1968. But the price ballooned from an initial $183 million to $250 million.

With concerns about the House vs NCAA lawsuit settlement and what that situation could entail in terms of athletic department revenue projections and disbursements, Alabama opted to spend $57 million renovating and expanding Coleman.

“Those are the same questions we’re asking ourselves right now in making a decision,” Cunningham said.

“One of the drivers of the renovation, beyond just taking care of the infrastructure things, is there a return on the investment? Let’s just say we’re netting $15 million on the arena because of ticket sales and what we do. If you can net $20 million or $30 million, yes, you have more debt but you have return on that investment to help you fund the settlement (requirements).”

Dean E. Smith center history

The Smith Center opened Jan. 18, 1986, with a basketball game pitting the UNC men’s team against the Duke Blue Devils — Dean Smith on the UNC bench, Mike Krzyzewski on the other — as the Heels won, 95-92. About $34 million was raised from more than 2,000 private donors to build it, and a gift of $10,000 or more granted ticket rights for two generations, the New York Times reported.

Smith’s teams played at Carmichael Auditorium, which was one of the loudest and most intimidating arenas in the ACC. Smith liked that kind of claustrophobic home court advantage, but also recognized the need for a new place to play, and the Dean E. Smith Center was built.

The Heels’ women’s team remained at Carmichael, which was remodeled in 2008 and 2009, when the women played in the Smith Center. They returned in December 2009 to the renamed Carmichael Arena.

In late 2013 and into 2014, UNC worked with 360 Architecture, later acquired by design firm HOK, on a proposed plan that would build a new arena in the Bowles Lot.

That arena would have included premium seating — suites and club seats — to generate more revenue and enhanced fan amenities. It would have a practice court. It also would have the administrative offices for the men’s and women’s basketball programs.

There also was a proposed renovation plan for the Smith Center. It would have three levels of premium seating on the west side and seating of 17,612. Cunningham said then that any renovation plan would need to allow the basketball team to play at the arena during the work phases.

More time has passed. Other facility needs at UNC have been met. There was the pandemic, with the demands it brought.

“We’re in a good place right now,” UNC trustee Vinay Patel said. “It’s not something that has to happen tomorrow. We have a facility, one of the largest in the NCAA, and it’s functional.”

‘Like remodeling your house’

Under the options now being studied, a major renovation of the Smith Center would require the men’s team to play off site. (Some have jokingly said UNC might look into playing some games in Raleigh, at NC State’s place.)

“There are different concepts of what can happen to the Smith Center,” Patel said. “People will have different opinions on the way it should be and what it should look like, whether it’s new, whether it’s renovated.

“Information gathering is what’s going on right now and hopefully down the road. It’s nothing you can put into a short-term plan. There will be a decision made and then we’ll move forward. … A lot of factors will go into it, price being the most critical and student experience being right behind it or tied for No. 1.”

Patel said it was hard to put a timeline on an enhanced Smith Center or new arena, saying after a decision on an option is made, it will be followed by the financing and fund-raising needed “to make it happen.”

The Smith Center was renovated in 2016, with new locker rooms and offices constructed. New video boards later were added.

“It’s like remodeling your house,” Cunningham said then. “You can enhance it. There’s plenty of things you can do. Some will argue a need to enhance it a lot; others will say you don’t need to change it — it’s terrific. And other people will say, ‘Boy, if you’re going to invest this significant amount of money you should probably bite the bullet and really build new.’ ”

University leaders are still asking that question

“There’s still a lot of work to do and there are a lot of opinions,” UNC trustee Brad Briner said. “Everyone’s got one and we’re trying to listen to them all and trying to get to a good place.”

The conversation continues

While the deliberations go on, it has caused much conversation among UNC students, alumni and fans.

Scott Dupree (UNC, ‘86), is executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance and knowledgeable about the needs and trends of modern arenas. He would favor any of the on-campus plans and isn’t totally adverse to renovating the Smith Center.

But building a new arena, whether in the Bowles Lot or the Odum Village site, Dupree noted, would prevent the men’s team from being displaced for two years and having to find a place big enough to play.

Sneha Sinha, a senior, believes the arena should remain on campus. Another senior, Carter Sinclair, stresses the need for easy accessibility for students while also noting the Smith Center is “really outdated, the whole building.”

“Something needs to be done, but I don’t know how they go about that without displacing the team,” Sinha added.

Gov. Roy Cooper, a 1979 UNC graduate, recently was asked his preference: renovate or build new? He first said the Smith Center has always been a “great place to be,” but said to call him undecided for now.

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Correspondent Shelby Swanson contributed to this story.

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