Jax Vet Upgradable?

[Coolyfett]

I am in the Amry Arena here in Orlando and thier Arena looks a lot smaller than Jax Vet. I know there are more seats on this arena, but the building size is smaller....Would Jax Vet be able to add seats, or woulf they have to build a new venue to keep up??

[copperfiend]

The old Amway? It seats more but they have very few suites where our arena has quite a few. I think I remember someone mentioning that the Jax arena is expandable in the northern section where there is no upper deck.

[I-10east]

Yeah for basketball JVMA seats a lil' over 14K, and Amway seats over 17K.

[blizz01]

I assume that you're talking about the "old" arena (previously TD Waterhouse).  JAX seats ~15,000 (16,000/ concert).  From Wikipedia:

The Amway arena originally seated 15,291 but all the original seats were replaced with narrower ones between 1994 and 1995, increasing capacity by over 2,000.[3]  The arena currently seats 17,519 for basketball.

........

Experts stated that the arena was outdated since the day its doors first opened.[4]  Although it was built to NBA specifications at the time, construction began right before mid level luxury seating and lower level club seating became the de facto standard (the arena lacks both of these features). The Orlando Magic's desire for a major renovation of the building dates all the way back to 1994 when it was only five years old, as the team was seeking to increase revenue by expanding the limited retail & concession space and luxury seating.

[fieldafm]

I can't see any reason for the Vet to get bigger.  Music events were not very well attended at the old Colliseum.  The music just bounced off everything and Jax was historically not a great draw for concerts.  Now, we get better concerts and they draw better.  The arena is full for Sharks games.  We hosted the SEC Gymnastics Tournament that drew pretty well.  We've had two full NCAA tournaments.

Why exactly would the city want to spend more money for an already successful building?

And I've been to several Magic games, dating back to the first season... and the Amway was just not very well designed from the get go. 

[copperfiend]

Whoever designed the Orlando Arena took the term "skybox" very literal. All the luxury boxes are at the top of the arena.

[I-10east]

I agree with not seeing a reason to expand JVMA. IMO it's at a perfect size, just a lil' under NBA and NHL capacity, and no I don't think that we need the NBA, or NHL anytime soon.

[Wacca Pilatka]

I seem to recall that Mayor Delaney argued that there was no reason to build JVMA with a larger capacity in anticipation of a second major sports team, because the capacity to support a second major sports team was far enough in the future that the city would be ready for a new arena once that time came.

[Keith-N-Jax]

That doesnt make sense, why not just build a few seats for the future now or when they built JVMA when you have the money. 20 yrs from now or so another arena is going to be very expensive with the way things go up and up. JMO

[Wacca Pilatka]

That doesnt make sense, why not just build a few seats for the future now or when they built JVMA when you have the money. 20 yrs from now or so another arena is going to be very expensive with the way things go up and up. JMO

But by 20 years from now, the arena probably would be considered outdated anyway at the pace at which pro sports stadium and arena standards keeps escalating.  I think that was the other consideration--if the city were going to be that far removed from having the capacity to support an arena-based pro team, just get something functional done now rather than building something excessive (in both size and standards) or suffering with the antiquated Coliseum.