While the season hasn’t gone the way anyone would’ve hoped or expected it to on the court, the University has been busy exploring options for a new basketball facility, and it appears that process is coming to a close, with an answer. The inquiry into getting a new facility, or renovating the Smith Center, dates back initially to 2013, but Bubba Cunningham, and the University, proceeded with a plan to upgrade other facilities on campus, including multiple renovations to Kenan Stadium, the indoor practice facility, as well as new stadiums for field hockey, and soccer. With the completion of those projects, Carolina began to look back into a new or renovated basketball facility in 2023.
Their initial search landed them with six possible outcomes, featuring Smith Center replacement, Bowles parking lot, Odum Village, Friday Center, and Carolina North, with the latter two being off-campus locations. Per Inside Carolina, it appears as if the desired location for a new facility, happens to be Carolina North, which is located near Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, and Estes Drive, where Horace Williams Airport was located until it closed back in 2018.
Per the Inside Carolina article, the plan calls for a venue seating roughly 16,000 people, a decrease of nearly 6,000 from Carolina’s current venue, the Dean E. Smith Center. Of that 16,000 seating, 20% will consist of luxury seating, with 3,000 seats reserved for students, and 10,000 seats set aside for fans, and or the general public.
Now Chancellor Roberts offered these quotes to the Triangle Business Journal when talking about a new basketball facility saying, "If we were to move the basketball arena to a location away from the central core of campus, we wouldn't put it in the middle of surface parking lots with nothing else around, It would be part of a broader mixed-use development program, as you've seen in several other venues across the country with multiple uses, including lodging, retail, entertainment and dining. "And I'll tell you that would be a significant improvement on the Smith Center location. So it is walkable for a lot of the students, but there's nowhere to get a bite to eat before the game, there's nowhere to grab a beer after the game.”
This matter comes up at a time when Carolina Basketball, as well as the entire athletic department, is undergoing a facelift, to modernize itself in the best effort to compete for championships. Hubert Davis has expressed there are changes coming to the program off the court, with a GM, and a personnel staff set to be hired, just like we saw with football after they hired Bill Belichick last December. While the Smith Center, is a basketball cathedral, it has become an outdated building, and the cause to build a new facility is just as much of a want in 2025, as it is a need.
It’s still way too early in the process to know if the building will be named after Coach Smith or Coach Williams, or a combination of the two legendary figures, or if Carolina will lease the name of the building, as an increased revenue stream. When asked about the possibility of a new arena at the start of the basketball season, current head coach Hubert Davis was quoted as saying, “I love every day walking into this building and it says, ‘The Dean Smith Center.’ I love that.” That tells you all to need to know how the current head coach of Carolina Basketball feels about the situation and expect many longtime UNC fans to feel the same way if this ends up being the road Carolina ultimately goes down.
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