Pollard: big announcement coming soon

cycloneG

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There certainly are but most university events are during the week. Bars and restaurants 99% of the time don't do their best business during the week. Friday and Saturday (Sunday to a lesser extent) have to be great to make up for the dead time during the weekdays.

How do you get traffic in the middle of the summer when everything is on Duff? The traffic that's closest (students) are gone for the summer and even if they're around they're the group with the least disposable income and the group that will make the area look like **** immediately if you tailor it to them so they're out.

I hate having to go to Duff for everything. I want more development anywhere but Duff.
 

TheHelgo

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Mar 20, 2006
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So KC's P&L, Wrigleyville in Chicago, Ballpark Village in STL - with a more student oriented flare

Great comparisons. Living in St. Louis, it is amazing what the build out of Ballpark Village has done for the area around Busch Stadium. Cards games were already a destination (much like ISU games), but BV has just enhanced that and made the area a destination during the offseason and as a place to watch away games/other sports, etc. If this new project at ISU is anything like the 3 areas mentioned here, it will do nothing buy raise the bar on ISU gamedays IMO.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

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Pollard has also indicated that the tailgating is why they don't need to have alcohol in all of the stadium. The public safety officials would not be in support of this and would be in favor of shortening the tailgate time if alcohol is served in the stadium.

Yes there are other factors such as pricing, staffing, the concessions to support it.

Don't kid yourself, the main reason why Iowa State doesn't offer stadium wide sales is because of $$$$. This is an exclusive benefit that JP can sell to the people donate a **** ton of money and he's not willing to sacrifice that yet.
 
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KnappShack

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I want to see the concepts they were showing donors last week.

This release makes it sound like they're willing to kill all parking between Hilton and Jack trice and im thinking that's a problem

And it floods....

But if they pull this off....amazeballs!
 

Clonefan32

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I want to see the concepts they were showing donors last week.

This release makes it sound like they're willing to kill all parking between Hilton and Jack trice and im thinking that's a problem

I just don't see how that could happen. I think we are losing sight of just how expansive the area is between Hilton and Jack Trice. I would imagine you could put up a hotel and a P and L type area and that footprint would still leave considerable area for parking.
 

Urbandale2013

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This can be either a complete failure or really cool. I’m holding out hope and all but I need to see any sort of conceptual plan before I get excited.
 

isutrevman

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I want to see the concepts they were showing donors last week.

This release makes it sound like they're willing to kill all parking between Hilton and Jack trice and im thinking that's a problem
It sounds like part of the plan is to move paved parking to the intramural fields east of the stadium. This would hurt Hilton parking, but maybe keep it the same for Jack Trice.
 

Trice

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Ames area businesses, specifically campustown businesses, have killed any attempt to improve the old campustown area at all which is why it's still the worst campustown I've been to. I could care less what they think and couldn't be happier with this potential development.

I totally get that and don't disagree. But we have the luxury of not caring what city people think. University administrators do not.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

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I just don't see how that could happen. I think we are losing sight of just how expansive the area is between Hilton and Jack Trice. I would imagine you could put up a hotel and a P and L type area and that footprint would still leave considerable area for parking.

Either way I would still be curious to see how much parking is lost. Where do the donors get moved to? What happens to the donors that have already been shuffled due to the donation level increases? I'm guessing with the new project over on the intramural fields that the once talked about RV lot is no longer an option?
 

FinalFourCy

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The bar and restaurant idea is awesome on paper and horrible if you have to find actual people to run everything. Without heavy, heavy subsidies by athletics a bar and restaurant setup will never work. The location is awful for 300 days each year. Phenomenal on game days...awful otherwise.

I don't think 90% of people have an idea of how tough bars/restaurants are to make profitable.

Could this work in Austin? Most definitely: great weather year round, huge metropolitan area. Ames? Oh boy.
That’s 65 days massively better than nearly every other restaurant in Ames. The other 300 it’s no worse than a wash, and should be better if done correctly. When speaking of how tough it is for a bar/restaurant, which is true, how many are even comparable to this situation? Average Joe that doesn’t have an innate customer base opening up the 10th generic restaurant on same street.

It shouldn’t be to the scale of the P/L, but it can easily be the best location in Ames given that Duff is a disgusting abomination of late 20th century urban planning with identical options all competing against each other for slim profit margins. And it can be hell of a game day environment.

Many professional venues are exploiting this model, even Green Bay. Generally it happened organically in many college-towns in which the stadium was built near campus, typically called campustown.
 
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Knownothing

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I must not be understanding the whole thing. Are they talking about doing something to the lots in between Jack Trice and Hilton? If so that would kill the one and only thing we have been good at for the last 40 years in football and that is tailgating. Sure you could still tailgate but it wont be the same. If I am reading it wrong then good. However, This would suck.
 

FinalFourCy

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I totally get that and don't disagree. But we have the luxury of not caring what city people think. University administrators do not.
Now do you understand that the comment alluding to the allowance of the tail wagging the dog should be over?

A generational project to the front door of ISU shouldn’t be constrained by the politics a handful of local businesses interests that wouldn’t exist without ISU. They should damn near be offering JP and Wendy Keys to the city.
 

Cloneon

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So the hotel will sit where the RV lots are now?
This is a fantastic delegation of vision. While most here see the athletics occupation, this will allow for expanding the use of the entire center. Really excited to see the architectural vision. Bet my bottom dollar this will be one of the student architectural design projects. I'd love to be back in school doing that.
 
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alarson

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I just don't see how that could happen. I think we are losing sight of just how expansive the area is between Hilton and Jack Trice. I would imagine you could put up a hotel and a P and L type area and that footprint would still leave considerable area for parking.

Yeah but if you read the release it seems like they're looking at turning the whole area into a mixed use district, more than just a hotel and a P&L type area
 
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Clonefan32

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I find the attachment to the current tailgating setup a little short-sighted. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and enjoy tailgating. But we are talking about 7 days a year they get utilized. And even that is assuming good weather. You get rain or extreme cold, you're down the 5-6 days a year. Forfeiting some of that tailgating parking for something that can be utilized year round, and specifically can be utilized for basketball games, away-game watch parties, etc. is a much better use of that space.
 

IcSyU

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That’s 65 days massively better than nearly every other restaurant in Ames. The other 300 it’s no worse than a wash, and should be better if done correctly. When speaking of how tough it is for a bar/restaurant, which is true, how many are even comparable to this situation? Average Joe that doesn’t have an innate custom base opening up the 10th generic restaurant on same street hardly compares imo.

It shouldn’t be to the scale of the P/L, but it can easily be the best location in Ames given that Duff is a disgusting abomination of late 20th century urban planning with identical options all competing against each other for slim profit margins. And it can be hell of a game day environment.

Many professional venues are exploiting this model, even Green Bay. Generally it happened organically in many college-towns in which the stadium was built near campus, typically called campustown.
Ames is about a 65,000 person town of which 25,000 people are gone 4 months per year. Green Bay is over 100,000 and they're all full time residents.

Almost all restaurants in Ames do great on game days. We can all hate on Duff for being a disaster (it is) but guess what? That's where traffic in Ames is at. A good chunk of almost any business making it is location. The Iowa State Center is a poor location outside game day.

If you could anchor the area with Hickory Park or Wallaby's that's one thing because their reputations may be able to overcome the location challenge but neither of them are going anywhere. No national chain is going to jump on being off the beaten path.
 

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