A BOLD proposal to revitalize UTSA’s Convocation Center

Much ink has been spilled here and elsewhere about the decrepit state of UTSA’s Convocation Center. I don’t feel a need to spill additional to re-hash the obvious. Plagued by decades of deferred maintenance and unable to provide a compelling gameday experience, the Convocation Center is wholly unacceptable for a major research institution that takes its athletics seriously.

A bold strategy is needed to provide the Roadrunners with a gym that is, at minimum, on par with an average arena in the AAC. The UTSA Athletics master plan from 2019 addresses that need by proposing a brand new, 10,000 seat stadium. But, as the years pass on without progress, the sticker price of such an ambitious vision only soars in cost. A new facility would easily surpass the $100M figure, and even with generous support from city and county bond money, that project remains unfathomable as construction loan re-payments would eat into potential revenue sharing distributions for UTSA athletes.

But, what if there was a way to turn that strategy on its head, literally?

Over the past few years, UTSA has begun enhancing their baseball facility on what I can only assume is a fairly limited budget. A new press box and premium seating aren’t going to be enough to justify the Roadrunners hosting an NCAA regional, but you can see where these upgrades can be the first step of a phased plan which injects a few hundred thousand dollars of investments each offseason, until eventually UTSA has a baseball park worthy of the program playing in it.

Such an approach to the Convocation Center once felt completely untenable to me, but maybe I wasn’t dreaming big enough. Though it will be costly, not very pretty, and certainly not ideal, I’ve started to rethink that a renovated Convo is an idea worth pursuing.

This harebrained concept hinges on one major directive. Flip the court 90 degrees and reorient the entire facility.

As you can see in the video above, rotating the court would open up limited yet critically necessary square footage to:
A.) Build an actual concourse around the arena.
B.) Insert bowl-style seating surrounding the court.
C.) Improve sightlines/broadcast angles to bring fans and viewers alike closer to the action.

With the court rotated, additional construction could extend the Convo’s dimensions outward and facilitate the addition of a permanent team store and kitchens – enabling UTSA to drastically increase the quality and quantity of concessions and merchandise available, thus heightening the gameday experience (and revenue generation). The current dimly-lit and under-sized restrooms could also be revamped and extended.

These upgrades would significantly transform the Convo into a venue more on-par with the average mid-major collegiate basketball and volleyball facility.

At first glance, this concept may appear as a common-sense approach that should have been followed when the arena was first designed. While the current floor plan seems completely non-sensical, it was actually a brilliant solution to UTSA’s facility needs at the time of construction in 1975. The Roadrunners had neither a practice nor playing facility, so they built both in the same building.

If you’ve only been inside the Convo for a game or commencement, you’ve only seen one configuration of the facility. When there aren’t spectators inside, it can evolve into a massive practice space with additional volleyball and basketball courts sprawled over 72,614 square feet. The seating can collapse on all levels, then eight basketball goals can drop from the ceiling, mats can be rolled out for cheer and dance teams, and multiple different sports can practice all at once. As is common with Brutalist architecture, what the building lacks in stirring beauty it overcompensates for with blunt utility. Function over form.

While the multi-purpose space has sustained UTSA programs for five decades, the Convo is just a few short years away from being retired as a place to practice. With the UT System approving financing for “RACE 2.0”, the Roadrunners will soon have a state-of-the-art practice facility to host its basketball and volleyball programs. Major renovations to the Convo will then be operationally feasible, should they be financially feasible as well.

Though a project such as this could certainly interrupt home contests in-season, the multitude of arenas located around campus and San Antonio could offer the Roadrunners an off-campus venue to rent as construction takes place. Following the court rotation and seating installation, outward expansion of the building could then take place in phases and without serious disruption to gameday operations, allowing for steady upgrades over time while UTSA secures funding for the more grandiose improvements.

And despite the hefty price tag that would accompany this type of creative renovation, the cost would still be drastically lower than building an entirely new facility – perhaps to the tune of one-tenth. Of equal importance is also the timeline, as a project such as this could be done this decade, by 2030, whereas a new arena could potentially take another 50 years.

Additionally, this approach allows UTSA to make other upgrades to the Convo that could serve a much longer time horizon.

For example, the ceiling is many years overdue for repainting as the odd-colored turquoise plaster is known to chip and fall to the floor. The lighting system in the Convo is also woefully outdated, as massive halogen bulbs emit a loud buzz and prevent gameday operators from dynamically dimming the lights during player introductions, concerts, etc. A modern LED system with RGB lights could provide a significant boost to the gameday experience by bathing the gym in orange and navy to keep the crowd engaged during breaks in play, while also opening up the Convo as an indoor hosting space to other potential events. Any renovations to the ceiling could remain intact should the playing surface be re-oriented.

Also, one side of the upper level is currently completely closed to spectators (I’ve been told due to safety concerns around inadequate exit pathways). This space could instead be converted into premium seating areas, whether those be enclosed private suites or small but spacious terrace seating with tables, televisions, waitstaff service, lounge chairs, standing room space, a bar, etc.

These costs are much more justified in a renovated Convo rather than in a building that is waiting to be decommissioned. This also allows UTSA to divvy up their resources and continue baseball park and other facility improvements simultaneously, instead of breaking their budget on one single new arena.

Interestingly enough, while researching this post I found that other mid-major programs are already undergoing court rotations to convert their fieldhouse style gyms into bowl-seating arenas. La Salle spent just $12M on their facility renovation last year and the results are breath-taking, as shown in the video below:

In another similar project, Sacred Heart’s arena went from looking strikingly like the Convo to a decent little arena in just over a year.

What do you think Roadrunner fans? Is a piecemeal approach to renovations worth the effort and cost, or should UTSA bear the extreme pain of taking on debt to build a sparkling new arena in the age of revenue sharing?

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