mouser
Business of Hockey
Want to know what they'd do?
Expand the upper portion of the building to meet up with the lower footprint (relatively cheap). That would create space, that is currently void space (a roof) for a second concourse. The footprint is already there for this.
That would allow for putting in luxury suites around the top of the entire lower bowl.
The roof was designed to be raised to accommodate expansion of luxury suites and possibly extra seating.
The lower level of Copps is quite large.....many suites could be built down there. The term escapes me....whatever you call those luxury boxes that you go back to during intermissions or whenever you want.....but aren't facing the arena space. Bunker boxes maybe. Or the lower level luxury suites could be built at a higher cost....or both, which would increase the 'suite' capacity quite a bit with no real major overhaul of the building.
The place was built to be expanded on. There was no point in putting in all the bells and whistles without a tenant. The Palace of Auburn Hills was based on the design of Copps Coliseum. The Palace put in all the bells and whistles they could.....while Copps put in the least. Pretty similar buildings though....Palace has a larger capacity but Copps might have a bigger footprint, not sure. It'd be close.
The Palace of Auburn Hills was something of a game changer as NBA arenas go. Several arenas built before or around the same time were deemed obsolete much earlier then the expected 30+ year lifetime of an arena was when they were built. Miami, Charlotte, Orlando, Dallas, Sacramento, Milwaukee.
In NBA circles, saying an arena could have been the Palace is the same as saying it's obsolete by the current standards. And in all those cases the response was to build a new arena. I'm skeptical that putting $300m into an arena refurb that isn't MSG would make sense for Hamilton.