Dear Colleagues and Students,
Last year, DePaul's Vision 2018 strategic plan articulated our
many goals for the next six years. One goal — bringing men's basketball
back to Chicago — created a flurry of speculation about possible sites
for a new DePaul basketball arena. Indeed, we received and reviewed
about a dozen different proposals. We weighed the advantages and
disadvantages of each. Ultimately, we agreed to pursue a
public-private partnership that would offer the most cost-efficient and
accessible venue for DePaul basketball.
Today, I am thrilled to tell you that Mayor Rahm Emanuel
has just announced the city's plans for a large-scale tourism and
economic development project near McCormick Place — one that will
include a new, 10,000-seat events and convention facility, that also
will serve as a DePaul arena for both our men's and women's programs.
Home to both the men's and women's teams, the new facility will
bring together the large and diverse community of DePaul students,
alumni and fans from the city and suburbs. In addition to hosting home
games for DePaul basketball teams and serving as a practice facility,
the events center will support other high-profile functions for both
DePaul and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) —
including DePaul commencement ceremonies, special events and Chicago's
convention-related business. The facility will serve as an important
venue for many Chicago-area public and private schools and other
colleges as well, including Chicago Public Schools sporting events,
graduations, City Colleges events, and the like.
DePaul is now one of several strong partners who are part of the
mayor's plan to make Chicago more attractive to tourists and convention
planners. Other facilities being planned as part of the city's
collective package of strategic investments in tourism and economic
development in the South Loop include:
- Street-level restaurants and shops at the base of the arena, along Prairie and Indiana Avenues;
- A 400-room hotel on the same block, along Cermak Road;
- A second hotel development on the south side of Cermak Road between Indiana and Michigan Avenue;
- An elevated pedestrian walkway from the McCormick Place parking garage to the arena facility; and
- A related $166 million investment in the renovation of Navy Pier and the Children's Museum.
The city expects this project to produce 3,000 to 5,000
permanent jobs, along with 5,000 construction jobs during the building
phase.
DePaul's investment in this partnership with the city will
amount to $70 million. We believe we can complete this project without
affecting tuition. Funding will come from ticket sales, naming rights
for the arena, revenues generated by DePaul athletics and the Big East
Conference, and fundraising. Happily, several gifts have been
committed, and we look forward to announcing them in the near future.
DePaul makes this investment for several reasons. College
basketball presents high-impact opportunities to promote our
reputation. Alumni find the broadened name recognition a help when
competing for jobs nationally. This first-class facility and its more
central location will help us build on the momentum our basketball
program has enjoyed in recent years from hiring first-rate coaches and
staff. And, most immediately, this partnership provides a rare
opportunity to do so at a reasonable cost while helping the city to
achieve its goals of rejuvenating Motor Row — an area it has long
wanted to revive — and while helping the MPEA attract a broader array of
conventions to the city.
We do this with nothing but gratitude for the Allstate Arena in
Rosemont and for the city leaders who have been so supportive for so
many years. It has been a wonderful relationship. Given that
construction on the new facility is not expected to start until 2014,
we likely will ask to extend our contract. Our hope is to play the
2016-17 season in our new arena.
Today's announcement adds to what has been an exciting time for the
university. Just this past week, DePaul completed construction of our
new soundstage at Cinespace Studios in Chicago, to dramatically
increase the learning opportunities for our film students. In July,
DePaul will open major new buildings for our College of Education and
The Theatre School. We will transform our library into a Learning
Commons this summer. We are redesigning space for our departments of
writing and modern language, and nearing completion of the
architectural documents for a new building for the School of Music.
All of this follows numerous facilities improvements over the past six
years, new partnerships over the past several years with Rosalind
Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Chicago History Museum,
Catholic Theological Union, Facing History and Ourselves, Gordon Tech
College Prep and Lake View High School, as well as the addition of 55
new majors and academic programs in the past six years alone.
This reinvention of DePaul has been accomplished through the vision
and hard work of our faculty and staff and the assistance of all those
who have worked on the Many Dreams, One Mission Campaign, which has
generated $283 million in funds to date for student scholarships,
academic programs and faculty support. This truly is an inspired
community that cares deeply for the future strength of our university.
Thank you for making this exciting next step in our history
possible. Without your unwavering dedication and hard work, DePaul
would not be what it is — the kind of institution that makes us an
attractive partner for ambitious projects like these.
God bless you,
Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M.
President
For additional information about the arena, please check the following website
http://alumni.depaul.edu/arena
