With an overwhelming “no” vote by Ames residents and Iowa State students, the Hilton Coliseum expansion referendum failed Tuesday.

The outcome of the vote received mixed reactions from students, with the primary concern of many college-aged voters being the lack of student seating for basketball games.

“I would have been all for it if there were a lot of the new seats allotted for students,” said Simon Messmer, freshman in psychology and history.

“The stadium is there because of the students, and the basketball teams are composed of students,” he said. “It only makes sense that we need to have more seats down by the floor.”

Messmer said more student seating would help boost team morale.

“If you look on ESPN, you see screaming college kids rooting on their team. We need that here,” he said.

Mike Wilson, sophomore in pre-optometry, agreed that improvements that directly affect students are needed.

“I thought it would be cool if [an expansion] attracted bigger and better concerts, but I think that they need to focus more on the needs of students,” he said. “If they were expanding it for student seats and not for the alumni, it would be really cool, but that is not the case.”

The failure of the referendum is a lost opportunity for the university, said Carl Olson, sophomore in mechanical engineering.

“I am kind of disappointed that it failed because this was an opportunity to take a big step to help improve the state of Hilton,” he said. “Not necessarily the building, but the kind of acts and variety of acts that come in here and play.”

Expanding Hilton was one of the only ways to bring in bigger-name bands, Olson said.

“I don’t know exactly what it is like at other universities, but it seems like most of those universities are bringing in bigger and better things and attracting the quality acts,” he said. “We need to do what we can to make our situation better.”

ISU is lagging behind and will continue to because of the outcome of Tuesday’s election, said Tsoto Lebepe, freshman in business.

“I would have liked to see it go through because it would have helped Iowa State grow,” he said. “When I look at other places, it seems that Iowa State is a step behind, and we need to catch up.”

The outcome of Tuesday’s election sent a powerful statement to the ISU administration, Messmer said.

“They came up to students about it when they figured out that they didn’t have enough support to pass it,” he said. “They didn’t promise anything to students until they needed our votes. I am glad that we sent them a message.”