Quote Originally Posted by Laramie View Post
The Peake can become part of the new convention center-hotel-arena complex.

We need to remember that the Peake was originally built w/o all the bells and whistles; that's why the '97 NHL expansion committee passed on OKC, they didn't think we could possibly build a quality NHL/NBA arena with $89 million. They were right; therefore we had to invest another $100 million into upgrades (2008 MAPS for HOOPS) to bring it to NBA standards.

The Peake will have to do until 2025 (Collection for MAPS V begins), we will need a new arena; also the Cox Convention Center will be history by then.

Look for a new arena to cost in excess of $800 million (20,000 permanent seats/3-4 levels) if we want to keep the NBA in OKC. There will be other aggressive cities (Des Moines,Tulsa, Wichita, Omaha) who will want to lure the Thunder away, just as OKC did with Seattle. NBA expansion will be the topic after 2020--possibly two expansion franchises.
Teams want new arenas because they produce more revenue, and for no other reason than that. Until some new design comes along that significantly increases revenue, and requires structural changes to the arena, there's no reason to build new.

Now eventually we'll have to replace the Chesapeake, I don't think anyone is denying that. But I don't think we're talking about 10 years from now. I think we're talking 20 years from now at least. By then I'm sure there'll be a new preferred design. I'm sure there are a significant number of current NBA arenas that were publically financed, and I bet some of them won't be paid off for quite a while. I don't think there's going to be a new round of arena one-upmanship until some of those places are paid for.