I don't think they have a choice but to demolish Matthews. The foundation/building is too far gone.
I don't think that's necessarily the case, Drew. I certainly don't think the City of Boston is just gonna take Northeastern's word for it. The soils under the arena certainly pose their challenges, but that's the way it's been for over a hundred years now. I'm sure with the advances in today's building technology, there are workarounds. Certainly, that's what it sounds like the plan was when the project started out as of two years ago. At some point, my guess is someone in NU admin decided, "Hey, why not test the waters on a new building on roughly the same site, before we're forced to commit another $100MM into remediation efforts to preserve the historical old structure?"
For what it's worth, Boston's Symphony Hall is located about a block and a half north of Boston Arena, in the same backfill-laden Back Bay area (and likely similar soils composition), and was built in ( ... wait for it ... )
1900, or ten (10) years before Boston Arena. It too closely abuts yet another subway right of way, and yet no one is advocating for its replacement (at least not that I'm aware of?), or claiming that landmark is "nearing the end of its useful life". According to BSO records I can find on the Internet, Symphony Hall hosted almost a quarter million guests the year before the pandemic. I seriously doubt Northeastern is bringing even half that many folks into Mathews for hockey and hoops annually.
I certainly question whether spending $250MM+ on a new facility makes sense but they must think they can attract enough outside events for it to be worth it. They're likely going to free up some land by having the field house there too.
Totally agree, hard to imagine that spending a quarter
billion dollars on a new facility is gonna balance the books at NU, except for the write-offs like depreciation, losses, etc. can cushion the overall NU operating budget. Simply as a stand-alone, there are too many other facilities nearby to compete with for a limited number of events - especially events they're already not getting now, probably not so much for the "structural issues" with the arena, as opposed to its difficult location and crappy parking options. Agganis has already sopped up most of that market for the long foreseeable future, because it's modern, it's got plenty of parking, it's easier to get to AND it's already there. In short ... good luck with that.
I'm not sure what benefits consolidating a new arena with a "fieldhouse" will offer? I certainly don't see new revenue coming from that, but what do I know anyway, right? I thought I saw someone in an earlier post talk about the Reggie Lewis Center, which I believe is relatively nearby, but is not on the NU campus, but rather on the campus of Roxbury Community College. If that idea was somehow to fold up RLC to combine it with a new Mathews ... nothing will ensure a political response (and faster death) for the proposed new arena project. One only needs to look at the headwinds faced by the new Boston entry into Women's Pro Soccer as they propose to upgrade/renovate White Stadium, located in a corner of Franklin Park a few stops further down the Orange Line from Northeastern/Mathews, also in Roxbury. Politics in Boston as an obstacle cannot be understated.
Nothing lasts forever, but iconic college sports venues in Boston seem to come close. Soldier Field (Harvard football/soccer) is located in Allston (part of Boston), and was built in 1903. Harvard obviously has one of (if not THE) biggest endowment on the planet, and could easily build a new state of the art facility a dozen times over without blinking. Yet Soldier Field and its gothic Roman presence remains undisturbed going well into its second century, with no end in sight, after numerous renovations. My money is on Mathews turning into the second coming of Soldier Field, so like it or not Northeastern fans, Mathews isn't going away anytime soon. JMHO.
