An arena planning committee has settled on a preferred site for a new arena — straight west of the downtown post office — as the city considers whether to spend $1.2 million on studies, services and other costs related the proposed arena.

The city is considering whether to build a new arena — at a cost of $200 million to $300 million — to replace the 50-year-old Pershing Center. The new arena would be about the same height and size of Omaha’s Qwest Center, but with fewer seats.

A high-powered committee of local business leaders, city officials and economic development officials sit on the West Haymarket Action Team, which is promoting and planning an arena. Until Tuesday, the committee had four possible locations for the arena, all of them west of the city’s historic Haymarket District.

On Tuesday, the committee zeroed in on a site west of the post office, which is at 700 R St. That site is supported by University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman and Athletic Director Tom Osborne, who replaced Steve Pederson on the committee. UNL officials haven’t formally committed to having their basketball teams be tenants in a new arena, but Perlman and Osborne seem interested.

During the meeting, Osborne said the Athletic Department would prefer the arena be as close to campus as possible and “closer to the stadium, baseball park.”

“The thing we’ve talked about is we would prefer to have the arena a little bit farther north if we could,” he said.

He also said he’d prefer to see the basketball practice area attached to the arena, rather than separate as envisioned by some site concepts. He said that could reduce construction and utility costs.

The arena location was also preferred by 2015 Vision, a private group of business leaders promoting the arena and nine other economic development projects for Lincoln. It’s a powerful voting bloc, considering it’s helping fund arena plans: The group has agreed to kick in $1.65 million to help pay for arena study costs.

That would be combined with another $1.2 million the City Council will be asked Monday to spend on arena costs. Up until now, the council has only voted on declaring the arena site blighted and approving a redevelopment plan.

According to city documents, the total $2.85 million will be used for things such as floodplain and stormwater analysis; wetlands evaluation; facilities design; soils, traffic, pedestrian, parking and other transportation studies; financing options; land appraisals and possibly small parcel purchases.

Most of the money would likely go toward consulting contracts with architects and engineers, said the city’s arena project coordinator, Kent Morgan. Most of the studies to date have been done pro bono; he estimates the city has spent “well under $100,000” on arena work so far.

Mayor Chris Beutler supports the arena project but has promised voters will decide whether to build a new arena, likely in spring 2009.

So why spend $1.2 million in city money before then? Mayoral aide Rick Hoppe said the mayor wants the public to have good data before deciding.

“The mayor thinks it’s imperative that the public have as full an accounting of what is being proposed as possible,” Hoppe said. The money would help determine what the arena would look like, what it would cost and how environmental issues would be addressed.

To come up with the money, the city would use $500,000 in Municipal Infrastructure Redevelopment Fund dollars, $100,000 from the city’s advance acquisition fund and $600,000 in leftover interest earnings from the 2005 stormwater bond issue. MIRF money comes from cigarette tax revenue collected by the state and distributed to cities.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.