I’ve worked with four Millett Hall special events managers throughout my university career.
Millett still faithfully and efficiently fulfills its original intent as a multi-purpose facility. The building hosts athletic events, ROTC, concerts, speakers, the President’s Ball, graduation and more. At last count, capacity was 9,135. Basketball attendance averages 2,200. Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor and the Queen’s Black Watch came close to filling Millett. Basketball games? Rarely! It’ll take winning records to draw crowds and increase tourism.
Arena seats have seldom been filled in the four decades I’ve lived in Oxford. The basketball coach wants fans close to the floor. That’s been done before with portable bleachers at the north end.
An unnecessary arena, costing millions, underscores the folly of Miami University demolishing another valuable building. Preservation and maintaining existing campus buildings should be foremost. Millett represents a substantial investment in energy and resources, costing $7.5 million when it was constructed in 1967-68. Structural trusses were cast in England! Solid, polished terrazzo floors surround the concourse with imported Italian glass wall tiles — proof of 57 years of care. It is a remarkable, solidly built structure and architectural keystone at the north end of campus.
Compared to university expenditures, the costs to maintain Millett are dollars well spent. If the university can bulldoze for the business school, rationalize the destruction of serviceable buildings for a $46 million student center, justify cost overruns for the ice rink and spend thousands to upgrade Lewis Place, it can afford to rehab Millett, as needed. A Millett upgrade is tens of millions less than the $200 million estimate for an unnecessary new arena on Cook Field.
Offering a millionaire’s name on a new building should never justify an old building’s destruction, nor should the university cater to one whining sport.
Kathleen Zien is a 2006 Oxford Citizen of the Years recipient.
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