Knights Plaza

Knights Plaza at the University of Central Florida, often simply called Knights Plaza, is an exciting athletic village and shopping center located on the main campus of the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. It is a busy and lively place where students can live, shop, and enjoy sports events.

The plaza has housing for more than 2,000 students, spread across four tall towers. There is also a huge amount of space for shops and restaurants, covering 183,000 square feet (17,000 m²). In addition to these features, Knights Plaza is home to the 10,000-seat Addition Financial Arena, where many sports games and events take place, and the 2,300-seat Venue at UCF Arena, which hosts concerts and other performances.

Because of its mix of living spaces, shops, and entertainment venues, Knights Plaza is a favorite spot for students, teachers, and people living nearby. It brings together many different activities in one fun and convenient location.

Facilities

Athletics

Main article: UCF Knights

Knights Plaza has many places where people can watch games and events, no matter how big or small:

• Acrisure Bounce House – a big stadium for 45,300 people
• Addition Financial Arena – an arena for 10,000 people
• The Venue – an arena for 2,300 people
• Jay Bergman Field – a stadium for 3,600 people
• UCF Soccer and Track Stadium – a stadium for 2,000 people
• Cypress Room Event Center
• IOA Plaza

Student housing

Main article: University of Central Florida student housing

The Towers at Knights Plaza (Tower I, II, III, and IV) provide homes for 2,000 students, with 500 students in each tower. Students who live in the Towers sign a year-long lease for their apartments, while students in other campus housing usually sign shorter leases. The Towers are mostly where older students live.

Students living in the Towers have a special mail room and need to use their university ID cards to get into the buildings and their apartments. The apartments come in different sizes, from one bedroom to four bedrooms. Tower III is a special area for students in the Burnett Honors College. Many UCF athletes live in Tower IV.

Commercial

Knights Plaza has a lot of shops and places to eat, covering 183,000 square feet (17,000 m²). The shops are along the streets next to the arena and lead to the other stadiums. The lobby of the CFE Arena has a food court and ways to get to some of the other shops.

• 7-Eleven
• Amazon Campus Pickup Point
• Barnes & Noble
• Burger U
• CFE Federal Credit Union
• Domino's Pizza
• Dunkin' Donuts
• Jimmy John's
• All Knight Study
• Knight Aide Pharmacy and Convenience Store
• Knightro's restaurant
• Gringos Locos
• Recreation and Wellness Center at Knights Plaza
• Subway
• The Pop Parlour
• The Princeton Review
• Towers Mail Center
• UCF Card Services
• Veteran's Academic Resource Center

Events

Knights Plaza is a busy place with hundreds of events each year. From big football games that fill the whole UCF campus to fun block parties and bingo nights, there is always something happening.

Knights Plaza is where the UCF Knights athletic teams play. The football team plays in Bright House Networks Stadium, while the men's and women's basketball teams compete in the CFE Arena. The volleyball team plays in the Venue. The plaza also has Jay Bergman Field, a baseball stadium for the men's team, and the UCF Soccer and Track Stadium for soccer and track events. Knights Plaza and the nearby Memory Mall are popular spots for fans to gather before home football games.

The CFE Arena has welcomed many famous performers, including comedians like Dave Chappelle, Carlos Mencia, Bob Saget, and Bill Cosby; musicians such as Paul Simon, Elton John, Reba McEntire, and Nine Inch Nails; and exciting shows like the Harlem Globetrotters, Sesame Street Live, monster truck shows, rodeos, and even a speech by former President Bill Clinton.

Students and nearby residents can enjoy movies shown on a large outdoor movie screen in the middle of Knights Plaza. Before the movie starts, there are contests, block parties, and other fun activities. Knights Plaza provides couches and seats, and food vendors serve snacks right at your seat.

During the holiday season from November to January, Knights Plaza hosts "Light Up UCF." An ice rink is set up in front of the arena, and nightly events celebrate the holidays. A colorful light show with over 75,000 lights dances to holiday music, and live concerts feature bands like the Marching Knights and local artists. In the first year of this event in 2008, over 150,000 people came to enjoy it. The next year brought an even bigger ice rink with fun activities like an ice slide, a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and Santa's Village.

Future

Knights Plaza has had some challenges filling its remaining store spaces because of current money problems. Some people think this is because there is no free parking, so the university decided to stop charging for parking in some garages on days without events. A few stores, like Nature's Table Cafe and Mau's Hair and Nails, closed down not long after they opened, and some other stores never even started. Because of this, there are many empty shops in the plaza.

To fix this and make more people want to open stores there, the plaza holds many events. However, this extra activity makes it hard for students to get to the only study place on campus, called "All Knight Study," which is located in the plaza. Slowly, more stores are starting to fill the empty spaces.

When Knights Plaza was first built, there were plans to add even more store space in two more steps over the next few years. But because it has been hard to rent out the spaces in the first part, these plans have been delayed and changed. Some sports places will be made bigger to hold more people. For example, the UCF Soccer and Track Stadium was made bigger to hold 2,000 people in 2011, and there are plans to update Jay Bergman Field in 2013 to add 1,000 more seats and new special seating areas. There are also ideas to make FBC Mortgage Stadium much bigger, up to 65,000 seats, but these plans have not been made yet.