New UCI Gym on Schedule, Director Says
UC Irvine’s new gym and concert hall, the Donald Bren Events Center, will open in January “despite the rumors” to the contrary, the center’s director said Tuesday.
“There’s been a lot of rumors on the campus that it’ll be delayed, but our plans are still to open in January,” the director, Steven Neal, said. He added that the specific target is Jan. 8 for a home basketball game between UCI and Utah State University.
Neal also said the event center’s final cost is holding firm at $15 million. The campus had to juggle funds when the cost increased from the $11.5 million estimated in 1982 to the current price tag of $15 million. The building will become the second largest indoor-seating arena in Orange County, behind the Anaheim Convention Center. The events center will seat 5,000 for basketball games and up to 6,000 for other events, such as concerts.
The center is named for Donald Bren, board chairman of the Irvine Co., who personally donated $1 million for the structure. The Irvine Co. itself donated $500,000.
About 450 community leaders from Orange County tonight will get a preview of the mammoth building. UCI is staging “a hard hat reception” and wine-tasting party at the construction site.
The guests will see the nearly completed outside and the dangling innards of a 78,400-square-foot structure that is dear to the hearts of UCI officials. Despite problems, notably the higher-than-predicted cost, the Donald Bren Events Center has been a centerpiece of UCI’s building boom in the 1980s.
“We need an indoor place to get campus and the community together,” Chancellor Jack W. Peltason said Tuesday in an interview. “This center will give us that place. Fortunately, because of good weather, we can have outdoor events, such as the Concerts Under the Stars and outdoor graduations. But a campus needs a place for indoor events, where people can get together and participate.
“A university is more than going to class. It’s more than a formal schedule. It’s a place for meetings and gatherings, and this center will provide that indoor facility.”
Peltason emphasized that he is pleased with the progress on the events center. He said the additional cost was simply a factor in the unusual way the building evolved.
“Usually the state calls for working drawings, and the cost estimates come from those working drawings,” Peltason said. “Because the campus had to plan for this center well in advance, we had to make estimates several years before construction started.” He said virtually all of the extra money to build the center has been obtained by UCI, through a combination of ticket surcharges, increased student enrollment, transfers of building funds, selling of seat options and lower-than-expected bids on some parts of the project.
But Peltason said more donations are needed to finish the building.