With some of the issues raising money over the past decade of different projects I just don't think it's as easy as you think it is to raise those kind of dollars.

 

They built a $50 million FB practice facility in the midst of a recession on the back of a single donor, right? Something tells me there are plenty of rich UK fans willing to show their enthusiasm for building a new home for their beloved hoops team. You're selling the donor base short.

Whatever UK eventually builds will be state of the art at that time, so plan on it being expensive. I'm of the opinion they could get plenty of big-money donors to line up for this, and even if they didn't get the full amount, why not just bond the remaining amount? It's a lot easier to pay bond service down for $100 million than $500 mil.

 

That makes more sense to me.

The New Kings Arena one of the smallest in the NBA will cost $475 Million to build, The Amway Center in Orlando was around $400 Million...I just don't see UK building anything for less than $500 as it gets more expensive each year that passes.

 

Each year that passes building gets more expensive. But property in Lexington is also much cheaper than property being used in those NBA markets. I forget how much the new arena in Brooklyn cost to build, it was an absurd amount of money though. However half of the total cost was to buy up the surrounding property. I imagine UK could build something extremely nice for 3-400 million if they can put it on property they already own.

 

To me the best solution for the city of Lexington would be to sell Rupp to UK and let them refurb it how they want it. Otherwise UK will eventually build their own on campus arena and Rupp Arena will just be an empty piece of history. Lexington isn't big enough to support two large indoor facilities and you can bet your life savings that the newer nicer arena would be the one getting all of the concerts/conventions/etc.