Utah Flash owner Brandt Andersen on Friday will announce plans to re-engineer Open Court, an 80,000 square-foot basketball arena at the south end of the Point of the Mountain. The facility sits directly west of where world-renowned architect Gehry is expected to fashion a commercial and residential island, along with a five-star hotel climbing out of a massive wakeboarding lake.
Andersen, who is also developing the adjacent Gehry project, called the basketball center revamp "a good precursor to what will go on across the street."
His company, G Code Ventures, plans to begin the exterior face-lift as early as September. He said the building - to be renamed "The Factory" - could look like a "luminescent cube" and resemble the coming 80-acre mixed-use Gehry development.
"This [Open Court] is a building everyone sees and loves. It's cool inside; it just needs a complete face-lift on the outside," Andersen said Monday, adding that he wants the facility to artistically better the community. "We're going to make it a high-tech, postmodern place. It will be a little edgy, but I have no misgivings about what it's for. We want this to be a place families can come."
An "up-and-coming architect"- not Frank Gehry - will reconfigure the basketball facility's exterior. Andersen has not yet released that artist's name, but he said people would likely "end up recognizing the architect."
The Factory's interior will still hold five full basketball courts, a smaller court for cheerleading and a 20-yard-line football field with artificial turf. But an upstairs snack bar will transform into Utah Flash office headquarters as the NBA affiliate relocates from its current home in Provo's Riverwoods, and the 2,500 square-foot gym will be upgraded to a state-of-the-art workout facility.
The Flash will use The Factory as practice space and will host community basketball camps. But the team will still play its home games at Utah Valley University's McKay Events Center until the planned Gehry-designed basketball arena - part of the architect's 80-acre Lehi project across the freeway - is complete.
