The question of what to do with North Carolina basketball\u2019s Dean E. Smith Center has splintered the UNC community, with a behind-the-scenes tug-of-war recently spilling out into public.<\/p>\n
Now, documents obtained by The Athletic through an open records request provide new details on plans for a state-of-the-art arena to anchor a 230-acre mixed-use development and campus expansion called \u201cCarolina North\u201d \u2014 plans that were derailed by public pushback.<\/p>\n
The debate over renovating the current site of the Dean Dome, which opened in 1986 and is named for UNC\u2019s legendary coach, or building elsewhere, has been paused while North Carolina undergoes a coaching transition from the fired Hubert Davis to Michael Malone. But a faction of Tar Heels loyalists, including Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams, had vocally opposed moving the arena off campus to Carolina North and caused the university to rethink its efforts.<\/p>\n
Those protests were pivotal in stopping a deal that was all but done, the school documents reveal.<\/p>\n
In early November, according to emails and other documents, members of UNC\u2019s leadership began discussing how to inform key stakeholders of a move to Carolina North, which is roughly 3.5 miles from the current arena and was considered primed for increased revenue generation. Decision-makers even had a tagline picked out, for use in a video that would accompany the announcement: \u201cFrom Dean to Dream.\u201d An early timeline of design and construction milestones targeted October 2026 for the start of construction on a Carolina North arena.<\/p>\n
The school had a stated objective to \u201cminimize surprises and ensure informed support\u201d before a public reveal \u2014 and hoped a notable list of basketball alumni would help convey that message and rally fans: Michael Jordan, Danny Green, Tyler Hansbrough and Williams. (The latter two instead produced viral videos against moving the arena off-campus.)<\/p>\n
A related summary \u201cfor a mid-December 2025 announcement of the Carolina North development and new home of Carolina Basketball\u201d emphasized all the key elements of a potential announcement, from how it would be structured \u2014 a press release, a news conference, etc. \u2014 to other details. One bullet point focused specifically on how to address questions about the existing Smith Center structure, with leadership to stress that the building \u201cwill remain a vital part of campus\u201d while its exact future is determined.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout this,\u201d the summary read, \u201cthe media will define the narrative for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the bottom of the summary, underneath a list of priorities to iron out, read one sentence that now stands out in light of larger pushback:<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are essential to ensuring a confident, unified, controversy-free announcement.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the week of Thanksgiving, when UNC was set to face Michigan State in one of its marquee nonconference games, university leadership had drafted a \u201cSong Sheet\u201d full of financials, narratives and other information to lean on when speaking to prominent donors and stakeholders. Importantly, even as that \u201cSong Sheet\u201d underwent multiple edits in the following weeks, it never expanded to discuss any arena options except renovation or the Carolina North site.<\/p>\n
Months later, in February, UNC said it had considered seven proposals overall, but with three front-runners: renovation; Carolina North; and another on-campus Odum Village option, on a site formerly home to married housing, which was viewed by some loyalists as the best compromise option.<\/p>\n
A later AI assessment of those three options \u2014 which was shared with athletic director Bubba Cunningham in an email thread \u2014 described the Odum Village plan as the best \u201cbridge\u201d between parties.<\/p>\n
The day after Thanksgiving, Rams Club executive director Seth Reeves asked university spokesperson Dean Stoyer in an email whether the Carolina North announcement date was \u201cset in stone\u201d already.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe may already be too far down the road, but I know we all agree that this is going to be a very emotional announcement for many Tar Heels,\u201d Reeves wrote in part.<\/p>\n
At the same time that UNC was preparing behind the scenes to tell key donors of the move, it was also preparing for a January 2026 Board of Trustees meeting in which it hoped to announce it was proceeding with development of Carolina North. That included having \u201ca modern, basketball-first arena as the centerpiece,\u201d according to an early draft of a press release.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 30, Stoyer confirmed in another email that UNC was \u201c18 days out from our planned announcement,\u201d with conversations already underway between athletic leadership \u2014 including Cunningham, incoming athletic director Steve Newmark and chancellor Lee Roberts \u2014 and important donors and alumni.<\/p>\n
But two weeks later, according to multiple communications, it appeared that the mid-December announcement had already been delayed, with Jan. 7 and 8 then targeted for the rollout.<\/p>\n
Days later, though, on Dec. 12, the Carolina North plan met its staunchest resistance yet. A list of 91 influential donors and former players \u2014 including James Worthy, Billy Cunningham, Ty Lawson, George Lynch, Mitch Kupchak, Luke Maye and more \u2014 wrote a letter to Roberts saying they did \u201cnot support the move of the Smith Center and our historic Carolina\u2019s Men\u2019s Basketball program off campus, specifically to Carolina North.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three days after the letter was delivered, Roberts and school leadership hosted a video call with dozens of former players, many of whom emphasized their desire for the arena not to move off-campus.<\/p>\n
That wave of pushback proved strong enough to stave off months of Carolina North momentum.<\/p>\n
By Dec. 30, a new draft of the Carolina North press release was emailed to the school\u2019s decision-makers, asking for edits.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t include any mention of a basketball arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The question of what to do with North Carolina basketball\u2019s Dean E. Smith Center has splintered the UNC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,354,1770],"class_list":{"0":"post-715077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-mens-college-basketball","10":"tag-north-carolina-tar-heels"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116442201788820289","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}