Save Mellon Arena? (Pittsburgh, Liberty, Oakland: house, bankruptcy, casino)
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Anyone that has gone to a event at the "The Igloo" knows that structurally there is nothing wrong with it.
Even mechanically there is nothing wrong with it.
The Penguins looked around and said - hey - the other teams are getting new arena's and so should we. We are not willing to pay for out own building, so you pay for it and we will use it.
Then you have to have a plan where you convince the public that the place is no good, so they turned up the thermostat that controlled how cold the ice got and let it melt a little before a couple of games. Once they got the ok to get a new stadium, they turned the thermostat back down and everything was ok.
I hate being lied to. If you wanted a new arena and wanted more seats and better parking, why didn't you just ask for it in the first place and not lie to us.
Now the Civic Arena is in the way of making more money off the parking and they feel that the building has to be torn down because you cannot have competition.
The very first thing I am going to say is that I am totally against developing the area. Let people live somewhere else. The only people who makes money is the developers and the landlords. The city would still get a royal screwing from the new yuppies moving into the area - so why do it.
The second thing I am going to say is that we saw the same thing take place back in the 70's in Nascar. One good point would be Riverside Speedway. The Nascar people thought that they needed to build a real racetrack with bleachers where the people could watch the entire race and where they could maximize profits. So they tore down Riverside and they built a new bigger race track someplace else - Sonoma CA.
The land was turned over to the developers and they built a strip mall. In about 10 years time, the strip mall failed and now the buildings are sitting idle with no tenants in them.
When you build something you have to have a long term plan. Hopefully the Penguins will be here for a long time. Mario has made a long term investment in this team and this city. If the Penguins would have failed, he would not have been paid all the money that he was promised and so both sides would have lost out. Mario was smart enough to see the big picture when he took over ownership of the Penguins and now the city has to look at the big picture when they take back the Civic Arena.
If you are going to develop it, let the new owners develop it - and pay with their own money and not the tax payers money. The main floor is only 150 feet long. I went to Monster Truck races there when I was a kid and it was a real disappointment. They no more then got rolling and then they had to stop - because they ran out of track.
Forbes Field was worth more as a national monument then it was as spare land to build a building on for Pitt Campus. We can never bring back Forbes Field or 3 Rivers Stadium, but we can save The Civic Arena.
Quit tearing down our National Landmarks and save something for future generations to see and admire.
I don't think that will magically happen and make a real neighborhood just because the arena is torn down. As far as I know, there are no real plans for what will happen there. It's more like "Tear it down, use it as a parking lot now while we figure that out." That doesn't sound more appealing than leaving it there for the moment.
So how about a viable plan for after tearing it down before actually doing it? I mean, if you keep it, it can still be torn down later. If you tear it down, you can't put it back....
Agreed. The "plan" for this site's development sounds suspiciously like that for the old Syria Mosque. Check out the beautiful redevlopment of that site by looking southeast corner of this map in Street View. Bigelow Blvd & O'Hara St - Google Maps It's a good thing a historic, mid-sized concert venue isn't something that this area needed.
It's not like any of those anyway. They are all notably larger, enough to fit baseball and/or football fields inside. Plus, the Civic Arena roof opens. It was the first of that sort of building anywhere near that size to have a retractable roof. The roof support is all from that arch outside, so there are no pillars in there anywhere. The design is unique, as far as I know. Nobody before or since built a building like it. Some big stadiums now have openable roofs, but they're not really anything like the same.
That doesn't mean it's entirely worthy of saving, but let's not deny the building is unique in its design (if not in its current function).
Agreed. The "plan" for this site's development sounds suspiciously like that for the old Syria Mosque. Check out the beautiful redevlopment of that site by looking southeast corner of this map in Street View. Bigelow Blvd & O'Hara St - Google Maps It's a good thing a historic, mid-sized concert venue isn't something that this area needed.
It's a parking lot. I've even seen the lot, but I never knew that was the location of the Syria Mosque. It was torn down a few months before I moved here. So, yeah, that's kind of the thing. So you tear down the Civic Arena and use it as a parking lot "for now", and maybe 20 years later it's still a parking lot.
Location: Just East of the Southern Portion of the Western Part of PA
963 posts, read 1,454,149 times
Reputation: 768
Quote:
Originally Posted by Internet Superman
We can never bring back Forbes Field or 3 Rivers Stadium, but we can save The Civic Arena.
Quit tearing down our National Landmarks and save something for future generations to see and admire.
Three rivers stadium was a cookie-cutter eyesore and I don't miss it at all. The Civic Arena is also an eyesore and it can't go away soon enough. I agree with previous comments on the igloo looking like a 1960 world fair exibit.
It's not like any of those anyway. They are all notably larger, enough to fit baseball and/or football fields inside. Plus, the Civic Arena roof opens. It was the first of that sort of building anywhere near that size to have a retractable roof. The roof support is all from that arch outside, so there are no pillars in there anywhere. The design is unique, as far as I know. Nobody before or since built a building like it. Some big stadiums now have openable roofs, but they're not really anything like the same.
That doesn't mean it's entirely worthy of saving, but let's not deny the building is unique in its design (if not in its current function).
Yeah I agree, but the roof has been inoperable for something like 30 or 40 years now? I remember there was a movement to fix it, but the cost to fix the roof was determined to be unrealistically expensive...so it now sits as is. I know it's a cool design and all for its time, but from a national perspective it's referred to as "the Penguins old rink that will soon be repalced" and not so much as a landmark for the city. It's just not worth saving an old dome in my oppinion. The world's only retractable roof shopping mall(or whatever they'd do with it) is still just a boring shopping mall, you know?
Three rivers stadium was a cookie-cutter eyesore and I don't miss it at all. The Civic Arena is also an eyesore and it can't go away soon enough. I agree with previous comments on the igloo looking like a 1960 world fair exibit.
That is all.
Every single one of those cookie cutter stadiums of the 60s and 70s are now leveled and defunct....maybe RFK is still around but that's it if so. Three Rivers was a disaster...especially when you compare it to what the original design was supposed to be. We were basically supposed to get what ended up as Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City...a beautiful structure that still stands today and is recognized as one of the best parks in baseball. I give you the initial Three Rivers design:
Yeah I agree, but the roof has been inoperable for something like 30 or 40 years now?
That's not true! I was at a concert when the roof was opened. I'm not THAT OLD!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TelecasterBlues
I remember there was a movement to fix it, but the cost to fix the roof was determined to be unrealistically expensive...so it now sits as is.
It's not broken! The new scoreboard installation in the late 90s was anchored to the roof. That's why it can't open!
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