Old arena to stay

First thought when I read this was, "This makes sense." Instead of demolishing the Maxwell Convention Center arena, they're going to keep it in place and instead expand the exhibit hall to the north into what is now a surface parking lot between 3rd and 4th, Houston and Guthrie.

As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I suggested this four years ago -- but minus the building a new arena part. If the point was to improve our convention facilities to appeal to conventions, that could be done without a new 18,000 seat arena, which only might be useful to a handful of conventions that would actually want to meet in Tulsa. Tulsans could have been given two independent choices on the ballot in 2003 -- whether or not to build the arena, whether or not to improve the convention center.

Second thought was that this makes the BOk Center even more of a white elephant than it already was. This move is bound to increase the operating deficit on the combined center.

The reason for this proposal has nothing to do with the pointlessness of the BOk Center. The theory is that we'd have a better shot at the Big 12 Basketball Tournament if we had two arenas in close proximity, one for men's games, one for women's games.

It is possible that the old arena might host other events that would otherwise have to go to the Mabee Center, the Pavilion, the Reynolds Center, or the UMAC.

Even though the old arena is more appropriately sized for minor league sports, expect the convention center management to force the Talons and the Oilers to play in the BOk Center to reduce the number of open dates on the new arena's calendar.

Someone needs to keep a running tally of how many days the BOk Center has an event and how many days the old arena has an event, and what the attendance is at each. We can then use those stats to decide whether it might be more economical to mothball the BOk Center.