What N.C. State’s Arena Move Tells Us About the Dean Dome’s Future

Forty-three years ago, North Carolina State University won the 1983 NCAA men’s basketball championship in remarkable fashion. “Amid the hoopla” of the Wolfpack’s unexpected win, The News & Observer later wrote, came talk of a new arena for the team.

A new, off-campus court, the university believed, would generate more revenue by adding more seats than the old, 12,400-seat Reynolds Coliseum boasted—and more premium spaces for big spenders. Upgraded facilities could help recruit better players, making the team more competitive.

The university also saw the project as a benefit to the state.

A pamphlet seeking donations for what was originally going to be called the “Centennial Center” indicated the arena would “have an enormous economic, educational, and cultural impact on the entire region.” The brochure cited the state’s rapid growth as a key reason to build a bigger facility. “Prime access” from Interstate 40 and ample parking would only make the fan experience better.

“Centennial Center can be a tremendous catalyst for progress,” read a quote on the back of the pamphlet from Edward Weisiger, then chair of N.C. State’s Board of Trustees. “It will energize the University and the people of our dynamic region and enrich the quality of life for all North Carolinians.”

UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts has made many of the same arguments recently as his school weighs moving its basketball arena to a “satellite campus” at Carolina North, a planned development on university property three miles north of the 40-year-old Dean E. Smith Center. 

He has said moving the Smith Center to the property would allow for more premium seating and better amenities and would be “much better from a traffic and parking standpoint.” Of Carolina North, which the university first proposed developing nearly 20 years ago, Roberts told The Assembly: “We have not only the opportunity, but really the obligation, to develop this asset owned by the taxpayers to serve the state more effectively.” 

Campus officials intended to make similar points in announcing the Smith Center’s move to Carolina North, according to more than 1,000 pages of documents The Assembly obtained through a records request. The documents show weeks of behind-the-scenes planning for an announcement tentatively scheduled for December 18.

But the idea of moving the arena off-campus roiled the Tar Heel faithful, and the university backed off, saying it would get more input before making a decision. University discussions about the Smith Center’s future have since been paused indefinitely so new head basketball coach Michael Malone can “acclimate to the program and focus on future needs,” according to the athletic department.

UNC-CH’s basketball program has played in venues on campus for its entire century-plus history. Luminaries such as Roy Williams and Tyler Hansbrough have pushed the university to keep the team on-site. A committee backed by former UNC-CH trustee Rusty Carter and others has garnered nearly 40,000 signatures on a petition calling for the university to renovate the arena—or at least keep it on the southern portion of campus.

The committee has compared an off-campus move to N.C. State’s move from the historic, on-campus Reynolds Coliseum, which the committee says “harmed” the Wolfpack’s basketball program.

“Relocating the basketball arena will be a mistake,” the committee’s website reads. “We have seen this movie before and it did not end well.”

N.C. State’s move—the result of a long, complicated, and expensive process that lasted more than a decade—has seemingly brought mixed results for the Wolfpack. The team has struggled to consistently fill the roughly 19,500 seats at the arena now known as the Lenovo Center since it opened in 1999. But it attracted more fans this season than it had in several years, according to attendee data averages from the NCAA and the Atlantic Coast Conference. N.C. State also shares its arena with the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, an arrangement that has provided fans with welcome, modern amenities—more of which are on the way, thanks to a $300 million renovation.

“What we get at the Lenovo Center is pretty incredible,” said Henry Nichols, an N.C. State junior who serves as president of the Student Wolfpack Club, an organization that promotes attendance at athletic events.

UNC-CH is deliberating its arena’s future in a wildly different landscape than the one that surrounded N.C. State’s conversations in the 1980s and ’90s. Tar Heel officials say the Smith Center needs millions of dollars of work, including a new roof and other improvements. Last summer, a landmark lawsuit paved the way for schools to pay athletes, prompting UNC-CH to look for new revenue streams. And Chapel Hill leaders say they need to adapt to compete for the attention of students and fans.

“Forty years ago, there were a lot fewer options,” Roberts said in January after a Board of Trustees meeting. “We didn’t have a hockey team in town. The Lenovo Center didn’t exist.”

Generating Revenue

UNC-CH officials say, in addition to a new roof, the arena named for their beloved former coach needs less-cramped concourses, updates to better accommodate people with disabilities, seating with more leg room, and other amenities that would improve the fan experience.

Moving the Smith Center (officials promise they would keep the name) to Carolina North would make men’s basketball the anchor tenant of the long-delayed development that is expected to house academic and research facilities, retail, and housing for both students and Chapel Hill residents.

Rick Steinbacher, a senior associate athletic director overseeing capital projects and facilities, said on a university podcast last month that the priorities for the arena—whether it is renovated or rebuilt—are to ensure UNC-CH has “the premier basketball-first arena in the history of college sports,” including top-tier training facilities for the men’s and women’s basketball programs. He also said officials want to “significantly enhance” the experience for students and fans.

“And then, finally,” Steinbacher said, “we want to generate enough revenue to pay for all of those things, and then also continue to fund and sustain the Carolina basketball program and the entire athletics department.”

Last month, UNC-CH released summarized, top-line information about the anticipated costs and projected revenue associated with seven key options the university has considered for replacing or revamping the Smith Center. Steinbacher said three have emerged as top contenders: renovate the existing Dean Dome, build a new arena at Carolina North, or build a new arena at Odum Village, a long-defunct campus-housing complex near UNC Hospitals.

The projections posit that a renovation is the cheapest option, at about $591 million—but add that it would bring in about $20 million less per year than a new arena. The projections estimate a new arena at Odum Village would cost about $703 million, while one at Carolina North would come in at about $786 million. Additional documents obtained by The Assembly show that all three estimates include the cost of “site improvements” and practice facilities. Each option also has unique “associated projects.” Renovating the Dean Dome would include replacing the Koury Natatorium next door. The Odum Village estimate includes the cost of replacing a graduate-student housing facility, while Carolina North would include new parking structures.

The documents also include a draft of an FAQ about the planned move to Carolina North, which said officials had concluded based on an “exhaustive evaluation process” involving multiple outside consultants that a renovation “was neither financially viable nor competitively sustainable in the modern era of college athletics.”

“The combination of escalating construction costs, foregone premium-revenue opportunities, ongoing maintenance burdens, and the transformative revenue requirements created by NIL, and revenue sharing make a new facility the only responsible long-term path,” the draft document read.

Part of the discrepancy stems from the seating arrangements in the Smith Center, in which many donors who funded the construction of the arena got lifetime seat rights. The university says there are more than 4,300 “permanent” seat holders today, plus an additional nearly 2,100 who secured seats by funding an endowed scholarship at the university.

That model would largely be scrapped in a new arena in favor of a more “modern” approach, Steinbacher said on the podcast: Donors would make an up-front “capital gift” that would secure the rights to seats for 10 years. In a renovation, UNC-CH thinks it could secure about $257 million in capital gifts and other philanthropy, compared to more than $404 million at a new arena, per the summarized projections.

The current arena also includes just 54 “premium seats,” according to the university’s summary. It shows plans to increase that number drastically—to more than 3,200—in any scenario.

Luxury seating was less common in arenas when the Smith Center was built in the 1980s but had grown in popularity by the time N.C. State moved. The Greensboro News & Record reported upon the opening of the Raleigh arena that the venue was originally designed for more seats than the roughly 19,500 it has today, but the capacity was scaled down in favor of adding luxury suites and other amenities. By the time it opened in 1999, The News & Record had dubbed the facility “the state’s newest and most luxurious arena.”

“I had been fooling around with arenas long enough to know that we would be better off not building anything if you don’t put any corporate amenities in there,” Steve Stroud, then the chair of the Centennial Authority—the body created by the state legislature that owns the Lenovo Center—told the paper in 1999. “They help pay the bills.”

More amenities are set to come to the Raleigh arena. The Carolina Hurricanes, which operate the arena alongside its parent company, secured the right to develop the area around the Lenovo Center under a deal approved two years ago by the Centennial Authority, the city of Raleigh, and Wake County. The development is expected to include a music venue, apartments, retail, and office space. 

N.C. State, while not the owner of the facility, receives about $600,000 annually to support the men’s basketball team under the naming rights deal that saw the arena change from PNC Arena to Lenovo Center in 2024. The basketball program also brings in money from other sources, like ticket sales, which accounted for nearly $7 million in revenue in the 2024-25 season.

UNC-CH has a similar vision for a new arena, although officials said the public projections do not include any revenue generated by mixed-use developments. It has become increasingly popular for college and professional teams to have entertainment districts surrounding their arenas and stadiums, which can enhance the game-day experience for fans and entice visitors to the area year-round. UNC-CH leaders expected to see “dramatic growth in concerts and major events” hosted at its arena with a move to Carolina North, making the venue “a 365-day destination, not a 20-night-a-year asset,” per the draft documents.

“It also generates significant revenue for whoever owns the property,” Steinbacher said. “And in all these scenarios, we, the university, owns the property.”

Moving Off Campus

Should UNC-CH decide against a renovation, Carter said his committee is adamant that the arena should remain on South Campus. A university survey of more than 7,775 alumni, ticket holders, and donors in 2024 found a similar desire, the documents obtained by The Assembly show. In the survey, conducted by outside firm Legends Global, 75% of respondents preferred a new arena, compared to 20% who preferred a renovation and 5% who wanted the university to make basic repairs to the Smith Center. But if the university were to move the arena, 80% of respondents said they preferred it to be on campus.

The university acknowledged in an analysis of “possible paths” for the arena that an off-campus move was “not desired” by either the men’s or women’s basketball programs or fans. In December, Steinbacher sent athletics director Bubba Cunningham an AI-generated summary of university research that said “Odum Village is the cleanest basketball-first solution—modern, on-campus, and financially stronger than renovation—but it stops short of being transformational for the University.”

Many students want the arena to stay on campus, too.

“At the end of the day, what makes part of our UNC culture and identity is the Dean Smith Center and having basketball accessible to students,” said John Harrison Kiger, a UNC-CH junior who has been an outspoken advocate of the arena remaining on campus.

Kiger noted that the Smith Center is a short walk from several residence halls that are typically occupied by first-year students. Being so close to the arena, Kiger said, endears students to the basketball program at a pivotal moment in their time at the university. 

“It makes you feel more connected to the program,” Kiger said.

The sentiment echoes what many at N.C. State felt when the Wolfpack moved off campus. In 1997, the university’s Student Senate and Faculty Senate each passed resolutions against the move. Both cited a belief that an off-campus arena would be less accessible for students; the Student Senate also said it would be a stark change from the “sense of community” fostered by Reynolds Coliseum being at the heart of campus.

“Moving athletic events off campus discourages student participation, isolates the athletes from the student body, and projects the image of athletic professionalism which is contrary to the concept of a student athlete,” read the Faculty Senate resolution.

The News & Record noted in 1999 that the move meant “those students who now walk to Reynolds will have to take a shuttle bus” roughly five miles from the new arena. But Les Robinson, N.C. State’s director of athletics at the time, argued the impact would be minimal because “students are more mobile.” Plus, Robinson noted, the basketball team would play right next to Carter-Finley Stadium, which had opened three decades prior, and near other academic facilities in the area, like the veterinary school.

“One side of me is sad and hates leaving the building. Another side is excited. You realize that life goes on, progress goes on,” Robinson said. “Concessions, parking, seating—everything will be so much easier.”

That view has held up in the eyes of Nichols, the Student Wolfpack Club president. A lifelong fan whose parents went to N.C. State, Nichols said he appreciates the history of Reynolds Coliseum but thinks the experience at the Lenovo Center is a worthwhile trade-off because of the “smooth game-day experience” generated through the arena’s design and ample parking. Nichols also likes the “big arena feel,” he said.

Others see the Wolfpack’s move differently. Jenna Robinson, president of the Martin Center for Academic Renewal, wrote to Roberts in January to ask for more public discussion on the Tar Heels’ future home. Drawing on her experience as an N.C. State alumna, she advised caution about how an off-campus move could affect the UNC-CH basketball program.

“There was more parking, better concessions, and naming rights. But the fan experience was sadly degraded. There were empty seats at many games. And I don’t think NC State will ever replicate the home-court advantage it had in Reynolds,” she wrote. “These are the trade-offs that UNC students and alumni should be allowed to wrestle with.”

Nichols acknowledged that students’ interest in basketball, and thus their attendance, can depend on the team’s performance. The university allots up to 4,500 student tickets per game; representatives for the N.C. State ticket office and men’s basketball team did not respond to a request from The Assembly about how many tickets were claimed and used this season. The team’s average attendance at the Lenovo Center this season was more than 16,300 fans per game, according to data from the ACC, the highest numbers the Wolfpack has seen in roughly a decade. Meanwhile, the Carolina Hurricanes have earned the arena the title of the toughest place for visiting NHL teams to play with a sellout streak of more than 115 games heading into the current season. 

UNC-CH Student Body President Devin Duncan acknowledged a similar dynamic at his school: “The biggest way that you increase student buy-in and student turnout and student energy is if you have a winning team and a winning program.” 

In this era that requires more money than ever to be competitive, then, the arena option that looks the most lucrative could win out. Roberts told reporters in January that his top priority was to ensure the Tar Heels “win as many basketball games as possible at a time when that’s becoming more expensive for everybody.”

Still, many students think getting to an off-campus arena would be inconvenient, Duncan said. The university acknowledged as much in its analysis of “possible paths,” which said a “con” for moving the facility to Carolina North was that it would be “difficult for on-campus students to travel to [the] site.”

Roberts has since noted that the Town of Chapel Hill anticipates launching a bus rapid transit route in 2030 that would include stops connecting Carolina North to the main campus. The university would also offer a shuttle for up to 3,000 students per game to any off-campus arena, according to a 2024 report. But Duncan said few students seem to be aware of those plans.

Kiger, the UNC-CH junior, said the distance could dissuade some students from attending games.

“Add barriers,” Kiger said, “and it’s just simply not going to happen.”

Going Smaller

Roberts sees it differently. On a Carolina Insider podcast episode in February, the chancellor said it has become more challenging in recent years to attract students to games, given that the events are televised and easy to stream and that the Smith Center doesn’t offer “the best experience.”

Part of that stems from the seating arrangements. While a majority of the permanent and endowed seats are in the arena’s lower bowl, an average of 3,000 students per game are split between more than a dozen sections. (The university typically allots more student tickets for the Duke game each season, letting in 5,400 students to the matchup this February.)

Duncan said more students want to sit closer to the court than is possible in the Smith Center. If the university no longer had to honor seat rights, it could give students a better view. A sample rendering of a potential seating layout in a new arena, released by the university along with the revenue projections last month, shows student seats congregated along both baselines.

“What helps a competitive advantage in a basketball arena is the students on their feet and hollering, not people like me chatting to their friends and looking at their phones,” Roberts told reporters in January.

Regardless of the approach UNC-CH takes, some fans are likely to be squeezed out. All of the top options would reduce the arena’s seating capacity. “It’s going to get smaller, it’s just how much,” Steinbacher said on the March podcast, noting officials expect the number of seats to drop to between 16,200 and 17,700.

For his part, Dean Smith wrote in his 1999 book A Coach’s Life that “from a business standpoint,” he believed “that when you can’t get a ticket, that’s the best situation for a program.” Still, he came around to the idea of a new arena—which he “wasn’t pushing” when UNC-CH leaders decided to build it—because the increased capacity of nearly 22,000 seats “would mean more students could get into the games, as well as alumni.”

But smaller stadiums are on the rise, even for teams that have historically drawn large crowds, as attendance across college basketball has fallen over the past two decades. The trend was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Front Porch: “Of the 15 largest arenas in Division I, only three have gotten to at least 90% of their capacity on average over the past two full post-pandemic seasons. Ten of those 15 venues couldn’t even get to 80% while eight failed to crack 70%.”

When the University of Kentucky’s Rupp Arena underwent a $310 million renovation that added a new suite level, upgraded seating, a public plaza, and an expanded concourse, it also lost roughly 3,000 seats. A $50 million renovation to Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas resulted in improved concessions and restrooms, but it cost 1,000 seats. New arenas at Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin were also built with fewer seats than the stadiums they replaced.

Bucking the trend, N.C. State will have more seats at the Lenovo Center as part of the renovation underway now. The additional capacity—about 660 more seats for basketball games, for a total of 20,450—is likely to bump the arena up in the rankings of the largest courts in college basketball, where it is currently eighth.

That would have been hard to imagine in the throes of the debate that initially surrounded the move from Reynolds Coliseum, which was filled with outcry over “where to put it, what to pay for it, how to pay for it, who would occupy it, who would operate it,” and what it would be called, as The News & Record reported in 1999.

But by the time the arena opened, “State basketball suddenly looked shiny and new, and almost no one mentioned Reynolds Coliseum or the power brokers who killed it.” If that’s any indication, the fierce debate over the Smith Center may end up as a footnote in the long history of a storied basketball program. 

But others see a lot more riding on UNC-CH’s decision.

“If it’s not what the Carolina community wants,” Kiger said, “then it’s going to significantly backfire.”