pat

This writer makes no sense. Hotel rooms were given up at Quaker Square as a result of there being no market for them. This started back in 2007 by then owner Jay Nausbaum. The lack of downtown hotel usage did not cause problems for the convention bureau. The lack of convention business caused the lack of need for downtown hotel rooms. UA taking over Quaker Square was an effect not a cause. If all of these people think otherwise, then why didn't we seeing them lining up to buy QS at the time it was being shut down by Nausbaum "Downtown 
with students After reading the article about the University of Akron converting the remaining rooms at Quaker Square Inn to student housing, I wonder if it will buy the convention center, too (“UA to take last public hotel rooms,” March 27)? After all of the hotel rooms are gone, there is absolutely no need for our downtown convention center. It is no wonder that our convention bureau is having major problems bringing in out-of-town convention guests. Recently, the city announced that a developer would remodel the apartments inside the Mayflower Manor. I wonder if these rooms will be for students? Student housing is being built on Exchange and Sherman streets. When will enough be enough? Let’s just call the downtown Akron area “The City of Akron U.” Johnnie Hannah Akron"

well said, Zach!

Bravo!

I think UA should put in chair backs for its student section and add extremely pointed and sharp spikes on the seats. This will serve the purpose of punishing them for even trying to sit down and the spikes can be funded by adding an extra $50.00 to student fees.

Hey, just give me a seat as opposed to a bleacher and you can sit on anything you want! The university will do what it will do. I'm open to anything that is progressive and within reason and I trust that UA will do the right thing. Will it please everyone 100%? Probably not and that includes me but in the long run, all will be better for the improvement. Give me a good home court advantage for UA basketball and some top notch concerts on a regular, revenue producing schedule and I say UA will have come a long way. GO ZIPS!!!

You sound like a member of RHPB or ZPN. Both groups think they have a magical conduit to the brains of all 30,000 students who attend The University of Akron. It shows in the lousy turn outs you get for your events...rock on D.J. Sparky ...you frisky biscuit you!

... and nothing is stopping them from standing. I think you are forgetting that all of us want to sit or want to stand and that students are not robots and are human beings with the freedom to choose to sit or stand just like every other free person at The University of Akron, especially when one considers that the arena will be state-of-the-art, multi-purpose. I watch the UA student section when I am there at the JAR and although they are forced to sit in bleachers, most sit while others stand. They are no different than the rest of us when it comes to comfort and feeling like they are welcomed and belong. They are UA's main and most valuable customers. Why do you want to discourage their attendance by treating them like cattle with a group mind-set? They are there to be entertained and served just like everyone else in the arena. The more important they are made to feel and the more comfortable they are has a positive influence on how many of them will attend. Make them feel entertained, comfortable and wanted and they will attend. It is a number of factors that bring students to their arena and not just one. A winning team alone is not enough. UA students are people. They are not animals to be herded and packed into a section like cows in a barn. UA students like all human beings and other college student are eclectic. No one can make the blanket statement that "students want to stand" That statement is simply not true and makes no more sense than my saying that "alumni want to stand." I sit with fellow alumni and very little students if any and we all like to stand and sit depending on the situation. So, let's stop it with the classic "Akron U truisms" that have contaminated the progress at our university for decades. They are not true.

Nothing in that entry from Wikopedia states that students are forced or encouraged to stand. While it implies that they choose to stand it does not state that they are forced or encouraged to stand by making them sit in bleachers. Our Rowdies stand but their location is not considered our student location. Our students stand in their location and they do by choice. Our alumni and general Akron community members stand and it is too by their choice Let us encourage our University of Akron to continue to treat her students like customers and not like fodder. GO ZIPS!

No, they are not commuters nor are they considered commuters. Can't State, OSU, OU and other state university have this same type of "just off campus student housing" and they are not considered commuters at these universities nor are they at UA.

Not best of both worlds. Still sloppy seconds. Give alumni bleacher seats with backs and see what happens. Alumni give $$$ to UA and so do students give to UA. Why do you want to treat students as though they are the lesser? If students want to stand then they will stand just as the rest of us do. Forcing students to stand is not the same as encouraging them to stand. Many of you need to step out of the anti-student box built by Dominic Guzetta, Don Sabatino, Ted Mallo , Gov. James Rhodes,Bernie Rosen, Ben Maidenburg, Fran McGovern, Mayor John Ballard and the other backward forces that once controlled Akron U/Hilltop High.

Sloppy seconds... Students don't want bleachers just because they settle for them. I think they would be even happier with seats. We are looking at increasing enrollment to 40,000 as well as attracting better students who will meet newly established enrollment standards (no more 3rd tier university for us). The rest can go to Can't State. If there are a few top programs with seats for students instead of bleachers, then by all means The University of Akron should be among them. Think bigger! BTW, while government money does not seem likely in my mind, I'm all for it. More power to UA if she can obtain it. Perhaps giving a new arena an academic quality would help. After all, we got a million from the feds for E.J. Thomas Hall back in 1973 by claiming that it would be used as a lecture hall for student courses.

Where is it written that students should be standing? Actually, we all stand at appropriate times whether we are in seats or bleachers. I think bleachers look bad and they treat the students like second class citizens. It looks bad to relegate students to bleachers while others get seats. The general public needs to see that the university treats its students as number one. Anything else looks like the same old Hilltop High.

Yes, but too small for us (5,100 seats). We should model our arena after SLU's 10,600 seat arena except we should have no bleachers. SLU has a number of them.

BTW, I hated that show and the audience members made Thomas Hall look like a trailer park threw up in it.

22 Exchange has never been at full capacity. Currently UA has 3,300 students living in UA owned and operated on-campus housing. That will increase a bit once QS is totally converted to all student housing. The privately owned apartments near campus may just be approaching a total of around 800 to 900 students. Also, the not-yet occupied apartments on Cedar will not be exclusively for students. The same will go for additional housing such as University Edge and the projected complex on the footprint of the ABJ garage. All that said, I remain supportive of both on-campus UA owned housing as well as just off-campus privately owned student housing. They both add to the residential status of UA. No one in their right mind would consider calling a student living at 22 Exchange a commuter student.

TSO played at UA about three years ago. There is a definite market for concerts in Akron. That fact has already been established.

Oh, he'll continue to try but he won't succeed.

UA was trying to placate the mayor even though UA and most reasonable people know that he is full of it. His bullying days are over and it is about time. As one person put it UA finally admitted that the emperor has no clothes. UA will continue to give him free tickets to basketball games and football games in order to feed his grandiosity but in the long run, UA has that jack ass over a barrel as well they should.

http://www.ohio.com/news/university-of-akr...re-inn-1.384571. The University should have done this from the get-go. There was never a need for Quaker Square to remain a hotel once Nausbaum finally hoisted it off onto UA. If it's not "the end of the world" now then it wasn't "the end of the world" back in 2007. Nausbaum got rid of it for a reason. The mayor staged his huffing and puffing match over nothing and he and the ABJ knew it then as they know it now. Does anyone recall the ABJ editorial condemning UA and defending the mayor? I think they used the loaded language that "city hall was fuming" while the mayor claimed he had no idea about the sale. The reality was and is: there is no market for a downtown hotel. Hopefully, that will change but there hasn't been a market for a downtown hotel for some time now.

Not a concern but hope you intend on putting in 100% seats and no bleachers. Otherwise, looking good!

All very good points. Actually, UA has a policy that requires not only freshmen but sophomores to live on campus. As you well state, there are currently loopholes in that policy and UA may choose to close those if they have to. At this point, they want to be as flexible as possible and may look at other strategies that emphasize influence over force.

University of Akron on-campus housing is at 80% capacity which is the same estimate for 22 Exchange currently. The new private just off-campus housing is creating a dent in on-campus housing. However, UA is not alarmed and is currently working on strategies to remedy that. UA has the upper hand on this one.

I'll take it...so it's a little larger. It's beautiful and we deserve it. Let's just say we'll grow into it just like the 30,000 seat Info

I see exactly what you mean by the "ugly closed corner". It is very JAR like indeed.

I don't begrudge anyone from striking a good business deal for himself. However, he was an A hole for the way he did it. Telling the Plain Dealer initially that he welcomed the deal once he was given an offer by the university, then turning around and going to the ABJ with his picture on the front page crying wolf and spitefully turning his alleged endowment to UA over to Can't State. The Anti-University of Akron beacon Journal ate that slop up like a stinking crow slurps up road kill. He can do whatever he wants with his money but rubbing UA students' faces in the dirt after making a killing off of them in his business was just plain small of the man. He settled out of court and made out like a bandit and then played the victim. Manny did the same thing while using the ethnic (Lebanese) card. Looking out for one's interests does not justify dishonest, exploitative and two-faced behavior. You don't have to agree with me but I see both characters to be dishonest people and therefore A holes.