Colorado College continues to move forward with the building of its own new 3,000-seat, on-campus Robson Arena, scheduled to open in 2021. According to a Sept. 18 business plan, the arena financing was estimated at about $45 million, with about $27 million of that funding from the CC community — Colorado College ($6 million) and CC donors ($21 million), with a good chunk of the donor money coming from former CC hockey player Ed Robson, Class of 1954. The remaining funding will come from $9 million in State/City tourism funds and the final $9 million from private bonds. In May 2019, CC began demolition of existing buildings on the arena site. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2020.
Robson Arena will have an NHL-size (200 x 85) ice sheet, rather than the current international (200 x 100) sheet that CC currently uses at the Broadmoor World Arena (BWA), a 7,700 seat city-owned facility that was built in 1998. While the new Robson Arena is less than half the seating size of BWA, CC believes that moving the arena to campus will result in a better, more intimate game day experience, will accommodate the current season-ticket holder base of about 2,000 fans, as well as provide gameday seating for up to 500 CC students, who will finally be able to walk from campus to the games. Adding standing room fans on the open concourse, CC expects a sellout crowd to be in the neighborhood of 3,500 fans, nearer to the ice and with a lower-ceiling, making the building louder and more of a home-ice advantage. Robson Arena will be among the smallest arenas in the NCHC, more similar in size to the Goggin Ice Center at Miami (Ohio), a 3,000-seat facility that can accommodate up to 4,000 fans on game nights, and similar in size to many rinks in the ECAC.
Despite the smaller number of seats, CC will also be able to avoid arena rental payments, sell corporate suites, and keep more of the game day parking and concession revenues that currently are paid to the city.
Reaction to the new arena has been mixed. Die-hard CC fans and those on campus have been very excited for the new arena, citing a better game night experience, better recruiting and campus-bonding factor, while a number of other fans have expressed concerns that the building is too small to accommodate casual walk-up fans from the community, as well as plenty of parking concerns from the CC campus residential neighborhood. Those concerns have been somewhat mitigated lately as CC has agreed to build a new two-story 350-spot parking garage adjacent to the arena. There have also been complaints about the way the Colorado College originally sold the building to the community as a practice facility, and later changed the purpose of the venue to a game night venue.
Here are some of the latest public architectural renderings of the site and arena, from CC as of March 2019. For more information, visit this link.
Is this really the best they can do?
Good question. I think this is the right move for CC. College hockey is a game that should be played on campus, and given the small size of the school and the small, residential neighborhood campus footprint, this is the right size arena for this kind of program – similar to St. Lawrence, Clarkson and other similar sized hockey schools with 2,000-ish undergrads. This will be a CC environment, not a town environment – more upscale and more befitting of CC as a private school – a similar atmosphere to when CC played at the old Broadmoor Arena on the grounds of the five-star resort. Those games had special, more private feel about them, and I think CC wants that feeling back, with the added advantage of being on campus, where they’ve never played games before. The students need to be with the team, and only the really dedicated townies will be in that building. With a new building, their recruiting should be helped.
As for the building itself, I don’t think they need to spend more than they are spending. The fact that everything is new should carry them for 10 years or more. This also helps to push DU toward making some more updates with 20 year old Magness Arena. The new locker room was the first step, but there is so much more that needs updating…
I can understand downsizing to create a better environment, and I think it’s great that it’s on campus. I think it should be a good game environment for those who can go. However, the scope of the downsizing is so dramatic–cutting back over 50% of the seats, when CC was having no problem filling 7,000 seats (when they were good.) Seems like kind of an eff-you to Colorado Springs.
I think it is good for CC but bad for the Colorado Springs Community. There is already a disconnect between CC and the people/politics of Colorado Springs. This will only reinforce that divide. However, the CC alums I have spoken to are very excited. It may be a different story if they can’t find seats for big games.