After a meeting with Charlottesville City Council, the University is getting closer to building a replacement for University Hall.
Council offered a mainly positive opinion on the University's Master Plan, which includes plans for a new arena, at a workshop held earlier this week between Council and University Architect Samuel "Pete" Anderson.
"People have been talking about a new arena for 10 to 15 years now," Anderson said. "The general feeling is that U-Hall is not large enough. It is the smallest or next-to-smallest of the ACC's arenas."
He added that U-Hall is now 35 years old, which he said is old for an arena.
The feasibility of building a new arena was discussed five years ago, and officials determined that the arena should seat about 15,000 fans, Anderson said.
But the basketball arena proposal is plagued by a lack of funding.
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The University would need to spend about $75 million to $100 million on the arena and another $30 million to $60 million on expanding University parking to accommodate it.
The University needs money from alumni, private donors or the Commonwealth, he said.
Anderson said he currently favors building on the north side of Massie Rd., near Emmet St. The University would need permission from the Commonwealth to build on any site.
Such a location concerns City Council because of its possible impact on traffic and parking.
"We looked at how the Master Plan will affect existing residential areas," Councilor Maurice Cox said.
In response to the new arena's probable negative impact on city residents, Council discussed its desire for permit parking for the JPA, Venable and Lewis Mountain Neighborhoods, Cox said.
The permit parking would be similar to the 24-hour permit rules at University Circle, which saves all parking spaces for residents of each neighborhood.
Council also favors moving student driving restrictions from second semester to a later date, Cox said.
Anderson said the city has been strongly pushing such ideas since creating the Neighborhood Protection Task Force five years ago.
He said permit parking worked well for Richmond in dealing with similar problems at Virginia Commonwealth University.
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