Some people may still say that the Schottenstein Center is a $103 million white elephant, but the athletic department officials say the building will pay for itself in 30 years.”I guess I’m not really keen on all of the attention paid to athletic facilities, but I don’t really think (their funding) is competing in the sense that they’re taking money from us,” said Wayne Carlson, director of OSU’s advanced computing center for the arts and design.In order to assure that the center could pay for itself, studies projecting the attendance and commercial use of the facility were completed, said William Shkurti, vice president of finance at OSU. These studies allowed for the sale of $55 million in University-owned bonds to provide a cash-advance to the $103 million project. The duration of the variable-rate bonds ranges from five to 30 years.Of the $55 million, $10 million is being used temporarily to supplement funds that have been promised to the university by private donors, but have yet to be collected. Also, another $10 million will be repaid through the seat licenses and scoreboard, said Shkurti.Although bond sales are a common way to pay for large capital improvement projects at public universities, the approval for such a move requires the OK of the Ohio Board of Regents, said Matthew Filipic, vice chancellor administrator of the Board of Regents.”The Board of Regents spent a lot of time considering this,” Filipic said. “We agreed (with the board of trustees) because it literally pays for itself.”The ability to redeem the bonds using ticket and rental revenue without dipping into athletic department funds hinges on the facility’s success, said Xen Riggs, Director of the Schottenstein Center.To increase the likelihood that the bonds will be paid back with ticket and rental revenue, the estimates of attendance and commercial use were conservative, he said. For instance, he predicted crowds to fill about 80 percent of the facility during men’s basketball games. This would be an increase of about 2,000 people over the same percentage at St. John Arena because of the new facility’s larger size. Women’s basketball games will fill 30 percent of the capacity, he said. Hockey games will have a smaller number of available seats because the floor seats cannot be used.To compensate for the larger size and combat an “empty” feeling, Riggs hopes to eventually add curtains to make the arena seem smaller. The curtains would allow for the upper mezzanine to be closed off which would cut the capacity in half to about 10,000 seats.The curtains would cost between $300,000 to $400,000, he said.Riggs said 19 outside, professional events were predicted for one year under the estimates. This is significantly below the number that the facility will attract, he said.This includes everything from concerts to family-oriented shows such as “Sesame Street Live,” but does not include trade shows such as computer fairs, he said.Additionally, he planned only one rental a week of the center’s 12 meeting rooms and none for the auxiliary gym. These low estimates add to the likelihood that the actual usage will be higher, he said.