Miami trustees approve $280 million multipurpose arena

The Miami University Board of Trustees approved a resolution on Feb. 27 to build a $280 million multipurpose arena on a popular campus green space.

Miami plans to take on additional debt to pay for the project and will cover its cost through donations and the issuance of bonds. The debt service will be funded through an increased annual draw on investment income of about $10.2 million per year and through annual savings from retiring debt.

The university is not proposing an increase in tuition to pay for the arena.

Plans for the arena will now be submitted to the Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education for the additional debt to be approved.

The new arena on Cook Field, a recreational space on campus typically used for intramural sports, will house the men’s basketball team, the only undefeated team in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) as of the February meeting, as well as the women’s basketball team and the volleyball team.

New renderings for the arena were provided to the board showing a 223,532 gross square feet (GSF) facility.

New recreational facilities to replace those at Cook Field will be located at Millett Hall and Chestnut Fields – the second more than a 20-minute walk for students from their previous location – are expected to begin installation in May and be completed in September. 

Construction of the arena on Cook Field will begin soon after the new recreation fields are complete and is expected to be completed by fall 2028.

The total cost of the arena, according to a plan presented during a finance and audit committee meeting on Feb. 26, is $280,240,288, and will include a main arena, a volleyball arena and a practice court to cost $242,240,188.

The additional costs are expected to come from parking and other site improvements, demolishing Millett Hall – the current basketball arena – and relocating the recreational fields, which is expected to cost about $13 million. A new hotel is also planned for the site.

ROTC programs will be relocated to Harris Hall on the south campus. 

In August 2025, Vice President for Strategy and Partnerships Ande Durojaiye told the Oxford Free Press that if the university was given the “green light” by its trustees for the project, it would look into restaurants and “other areas of hospitality” to support larger events. Durojaiye compared the project to the Spooky Nook Sports complex in Hamilton, which he called a “big economic boost.”

Before the meeting, several students, faculty and campus community members stood in the hallway just outside of the meeting in anticipation of the vote, many of them waiting to show their opposition during the public comment period.

Senior Ashley Reynolds, 21, is the vice president of the Ohio Student Association, from which several Miami chapter members showed up to the meeting in protest of the arena.

“Aside from it being the fact that nobody really wants the Cook Field arena, … as someone who has recently had my major cut in recent years, … it's kind of a slap in the face to say that, ‘Oh, we have the money to or we can at least afford to borrow the money to do this, but not to upkeep on our humanities and these majors that people care about,’” Reynolds said.

Since 2020, 76 degree programs have been eliminated, and Miami continues to monitor programs with fewer than 50 majors, Provost Chris Makaroff said during a board meeting in September 2025.

Miami students, faculty and alumni recently published the findings of a survey with 3,347 respondents showing most survey takers not only oppose an arena on Cook Field, but would be less likely to donate to the university if the arena were built.

When survey participants were asked to rank the importance of a list of values associated with Miami, nine in 10 respondents listed every value on the list as “somewhat” or “very important” except athletics.

“If we consistently have a good team, maybe that’ll bring more people here as a sports school,” Reynolds said. “But in general, we are not a sports school, and building a new arena is not going to transform us into a better conference sports school and bring more people in that way.”

Tom Schaber, a retired professor at Miami, said instead of attracting more students, building the arena would “destroy Miami’s atmosphere, Miami’s culture.”

“The goal of the project is to enhance the Miami student experience and spur economic development,” Schaber said. “They want to put in a new hotel. We got two new hotels. They want to put in more restaurants. We got many restaurants that are struggling.”

The Oxford Free Press reported on the construction of several hotels in the city in November 2024, including a Fairfield by Marriott Hotel on Morning Sun Road and the Holiday Inn Express at College Corner Pike.

Sophomore Marley White, 20, said the new arena would be a “substantial net negative for our campus,” adding many of his friends use the recreational space at Cook Field, and the new spaces would be too far from the heart of campus.

Several students spoke in support of the arena after being introduced by Athletic Director David Sayler.

Junior Raegan Lantz, a member of the Miami volleyball team, said coordinating schedules with three Division I teams is “extremely difficult,” adding, “We must often relocate, adjust or reduce practice space due to game day setups or other events.”

Lantz compared the students’ training room to the size of a storage closet and said her teammates often have to complete their exercises and rehabilitation in the hallways.

“These issues go beyond logistics,” Lantz said. “They make balancing academics and athletics harder than it should be. A new arena would change that.”

Junior Amber Tretter, a member of the women’s basketball team, said “We lack adequate lounge and collaboration spaces for student athletes.” 

“I’ve often had to take Zoom calls for NIL meetings in the stands of the arena because that’s the quietest place that I could find,” Tretter said.

Although trustees were originally told renovating Millett would cost around $80 million, a presentation given during the finance and audit committee meeting on Feb. 26 estimated renovating Millett Hall to cost at least $115 million, and these costs were expected to increase until the work was finished.

An informational packet given out during the board meeting on Feb. 27 said the current design of Millett provides “inadequate space,” and it would cost an additional $60 million to create the practice space needed for three varsity programs.

Since 2024, Miami has also been drilling 530 geothermal wells 850 feet deep beneath the surface of Millett’s front lawn, which has made the site unable to be developed on, according to the packet.

Trustees were also told there would be additional costs to the university as a result of needing to relocate student athletes while renovating Millett.