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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

University of Idaho teams with timber industry for new basketball arena

“It ties in with our land grant mission. It ties in with the timber industry. It ties in with our need for a facility. This is really resonating with people,” UI Athletic Director Rob Spear said.

As the UI works through the transition that will see it return to the Big Sky Conference as a football-playing member in 2018 after two decades as an NCAA Football Bowl Series school, the new arena is a bold statement UI athletics are not simply retrenching.

Mass timber construction, while a well-established technology in Canada, is still new in the U.S. The university already built a plant nursery with wood.

“It won sustainability awards,” Spear said.

This was the germ of the idea to use mass timber construction for a basketball arena. Opsis Architecture of Portland, which has done several projects at the UI – including the campus centerpiece Teaching and Learning Center – will design the building. Peter Harriman/SR



Huckleberries Online

D.F. Oliveria started Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004. Oliveria's Sunday print Huckleberries is a past winner of the national Herb Caen Memorial Column contest.