Agganis Arena

Agganis Arena

The multi-purpose arena that I have chosen to evaluate is Boston University's Agganis Arena. This arena is considered to be the next generation of Boston sports and entertainment by incorporating the latest multimedia technologies and providing the finest possible sight lines and views of the action. The arena is located within Boston University's new $225 million John Hancock Student Village, a 10-acre hub of activity designed to be the thriving center of student life and athletics, Agganis Arena is a state-of-the-art, multipurpose sports and entertainment center scheduled to open in January 2005. A 290,000-square-foot premier venue with 6,300 seats for hockey and ice shows, the Arena is expandable to over 7,200 seats for concerts, sporting events, and family shows.

Including hockey action, Agganis Arena will host Boston University events, concerts, family shows, sporting events, trade shows and conferences throughout the year. It look forward to welcoming everyone to a beautiful, clean, comfortable, safe, and exciting environment. There are excellent sight lines, inviting food and beverage selections, and first-class Guest Services will make your experience with Agganis Arena so memorable that you will want to come back again and again.

The arena has many features to it to make very state of the art environment. The Box Office for the arena includes a fully integrated online ticketing system and also has seven ticket windows along the Southeast Arena main entrance and lobby. The luxury seating in the Agganis arena includes 29 Loge Suites and Premium Seats with great services and has a 5,600 square-foot Private Club Room with flexible floor plan options that can have room for up to 600 guests. To provide these luxury suites and club rooms there is a 4,250-square-foot full service kitchen and 300-square-foot Club Room kitchen. If fans are hungry during the game there are six concession stands throughout the arena that offer over 44 menu items. The facility includes 15 restrooms spread through the arena for men and women which are all handicapped assessable. Plenty of parking within great walking distance to the arena has been provided to all patrons. There are 1,400 parking spots right next to the arena.

The ice hockey rink has the greatest technology to keep it looking nice. The measurements of the sheet of ice are 90 feet by 200 feet with full ice-making capabilities. The rink includes 2 state of the art zambonis. The boards have a dasher system, which provides an aluminum frame with seamless tempered glass incorporating Glass-Flex and Check-Flex technology. This technology makes less stress on a player when they get hit into the boards providing fewer injuries. Also at each of the rink where the goals are there are two retractable safety nets to stop deflected pucks into the stands. The scoreboard that hangs over the ice surface is 17 feet by 24 feet that is a four-sided center-hung scoreboard with 7 feet by 13 feet video displays and integrated facia video ribbon. When there is a basketball game the facility provides a portable 112 foot by 60 foot wood basketball floor and a multipurpose 90 foot by 200 foot portable insulating deck.

There are many locker rooms throughout the facility for visiting teams and officials as well as two Boston University home hockey and basketball locker rooms. The arena has 6 visiting locker rooms with toilets and showers and 2 officials' locker rooms with toilets and showers. In the back of the arena there are three load-in and load-out doors and two docks with levelers and one drive-in ramp.

The media and broadcasters are provided with much accommodation. The arena includes a 24-seat press box, three radio broadcast boxes, two coach's boxes, and one television broadcast box with multiple camera positions cabled throughout the facility. Also there is 2 media/multipurpose catering rooms. A truss-level control room manages the arena sound system, house, sport, aisle and concourse lighting, scoreboard and control systems are also located on arena event floor as well.

The architecture of this state of the art arena is very unique. The size of the arena is 286,134 gross square feet total. There are four levels in the arena. The Main level includes the lobby, ticketing, arena management offices, and athletic department offices. On the Concourse level you have the arena concourse access to seating bowl, food concessions, Loge Suites, and the Private Club Room. The third floor is the Event level is where the sports and events are played, which include team Locker rooms, training spaces, event support spaces, back stage catering, star rooms, and maintenance facilities. The last level is the Parking level, which are two levels of structured garage parking under the Event Level floor.

Some of the structural facts of this facility are that it took 3,591 tons of steel, 4,943 total pieces of steel, and 45,970 bolts. The roof is uniquely formed. It is an eight bow-shaped steel arena roof trusses. The truss has a lightening protection system that two 21 foot attractor-type pole masts on the arena roof. Some truss facts are:

1. Size - 22' high at midpoint x 212' at longest span weighing approximately 70 tons each

2. Highest point - 78'-10 1/2" top of top cord above concrete at event level

3. Lowest point - 55'-1 1/2" bottom of bottom cord above concrete at event level

4. Exterior brick quantity - 160,000

In the construction of this arena 308,400 linear feet of electrical conduit was used, which is the distance from Boston to Cape Cod. The amount of electrical