They do mean U-shaped - for the upper bowl. The lower bowl will be complete.
Chris Granger actually went into a bit of the rationale for it during his presentation to the City Council tonight. The basic idea is that maximum attendance for most events (concerts, basketball games) usually comes in under 17K by quite a bit, so it's overkill to put in 20K seats. They're thinking to put about 17K seats (perhaps having standard max seating come in lower than STA's 17,317) but allow for the possibility of bringing in temporary bleachers and using the walkways you can see in the pictures as standing room to bump the seating when necessary (the examples Granger gave were the Playoffs, a potential U2 concert). And obviously if you dont need to pack 20K seats in there, you can take a few liberties with the upper bowl.
Exactly. Actually I ended up kind of liking the one with the rectangle things. They had a picture from the top. Those rectangles actually extend up over the top and come together around a circular area of glass ceiling. And it actually looks somewhat like a crown. The audience, after the explanation or the concepts, voted pretty overwhelming as liking that one the best. You can see it from above with Ryan Lillis's first pic posted up above (post #34).
The bowl will actually sit down below ground in what is currently part of the underground garage. This means people will enter the arena from street level. You would then walk down to your seat, if you were in the lower bowl. He said their would be about 9,000 seats in that lower bowl, more than any other arena. The other 8,000 or so seats would be in the horseshoe-shaped second tier. There would be a sky bridge connecting the ends of the horseshoes. For more seating they could have about 1,000 more seats or standing room on that sky bridge.
All versions will incorporate the inside/outside feeling. They want people inside to have a feeling of the outside being connected and people on the outside could see what's happening in the arena. They could also put additional seating outside at the horse-shoe end.
By the way, those rectangles could be used as screens to project onto. They think that technology will change a lot and that having the ability to project onto the outside of the arena would be most flexible to adapt. That white building with trees and grass on the roof is designed to be able to project on the white exterior.
Also, the outdoor plaza area would be very large and would include a large shade structure, too. They really want it to be a community gathering spot. I think it would make a great area for some of our many multi-cultural festivals held every year and for things like the Jazz Festival.
I came to Sacramento in 1967 and I think this is the most exciting project to ever come to Sacramento. With ICON, Turner Construction and AECON on the development team you have people who have done similar projects around the country, even around the world. And we are bringing in investors with the kind of money this city has rarely, if ever, seen. It's just amazing.
These are all just concepts as a way for them to elicit feedback from all kinds of citizens, businesses and city council members on how well they are incorporating ideas that the city wants.
I just get really excited seeing these concepts and what it could mean for Sacramento's downtown core.
