The plan is to play where the Wizards and Caps play. Just because y'all don't like the plan because you would rather fantasize about building a Cameron Indoor at McDonough and pretend the neighbors wouldn't do everything in their power - up to and including suicide bombing - to stop it doesn't mean it's not a plan.*
*The hyperbole is intentionally absurd, but no more so than pretending Georgetown could get permission to build an on-campus arena that would draw thousands of cars into the neighborhood.
For a well read and well written poster, your argument here isn't as strong, and illustrates a challenge --and an opportunity-- to this discussion.
First, a show of hands who expect to build a 9,300 seat gymnasium/arena on campus?
Not many. But it's hyperbole to say that the
only choices are 9,300 seats and community warfare or do nothing.
From December comments: "McDonough Gymnasium was built in 1951 to hold 3,600 participants at a school of comparable size, and and later as many as 4,000 if using seating along its second level. For any number of reasons, the gymnasium has been whittled down to just over 2,000 with no significant upgrade to the student experience. It is no longer suitable for many intercollegiate events, for academic events, for concerts, or even for recreational purposes. Even men's basketball practice, which effectively closed off the gym to students after the debut of Yates Field House, is no longer held there. At some point, and sooner rather than later, a serious study needs to be initiated on the state of McDonough Gymnasium and its utility for the next 50 years... Can the building serve the purpose it was built for, and how would it change going forward? "A reflexive answer that "any" McDonough renovation triggers the wrath of the Campus Plan is neither fair nor accurate--a review that reflects the student body of 2030 and not 1950 is not a siren call for thousands of fans to descend upon campus for home games. A university of 6,875 full time students has no single gathering place that can account for them... let's do a real study and not just rely on supposition."
Before there is an argument (and as noted above, a need for a legitimate study comes before all else), there needs to be a review whether some iteration of a 3,500 to 4,500 seat McDonough, properly designed and scheduled, could serve as a legitimate option for selected nonconference games, at least before Monumental doubles the rent to play before thousands of empty seats in mid-November.
"Well, we couldn't fit all our season ticket holders..." OK, that's fine. Judging by the trend, season tickets are going the way of paper tickets. Sell these as premium seats--some will pay, others will not. Either way, students will fill the seats and get an experience nearly every other Division I student body enjoys.
"Well, there's not enough parking..." It's been pointed out in previous pages here that the neighborhood would object to any effort that would exacerbate rush hour traffic; yet, not a peep was heard when 4,300 people and at least a thousand more descended on campus last October for a football game, or the crowds that come to Reunions, or those at Commencement. What do all of these events have in common?
None take place in "rush hour", and as audiences are younger and less likely to be driving into DC, car usage is significantly reduced when events are held on weekends.
"Well, we need an NBA arena to attract recruits..." Not lately. Empty arenas tell a 17 year old to steer clear of schools that do not support its teams. This generation has no memory of Georgetown as being good and the idea of it as "Black America's Team" is far more distant. The downtown home is still the place for the Big East, Syracuse, Maryland, etc. Across a campus that hasn't seen meaningful on-campus indoor sports in two generations, perhaps four or five games a year will rekindle the interest visibly lacking in today's students and tomorrow's alumni that going to a basketball game can be fun and can be part of community building. Who knows, maybe they'll even start supporting women's basketball, too.
And what would 4,000 seats look like at Georgetown? Maybe this. (additional views at 3:07)
As someone who attended the famous GU-Missouri game in 1982, no doubt you could restore Mcdonough to 4500 seats. Maybe even 5 with a movement of the court and reconfiguring the seats. We could easily play the soft schedule there and some big east games (Providence, hehehehe).
www.google.com/search?q=GU+missouri+game+1982&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS898US898&oq=GU+missouri+game+1982&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigAdIBCTcxMTlqMGoxNagCCLACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&ip=1&vld=cid:89b408bf,vid:6ayz9CFjssM,st:0