Columbus Civic Center moving ‘into the 21st century’ with SPLOST upgrades. Here’s more
Upgrades are coming to the Columbus Civic Center that city officials hope modernize the 25-year-old arena.
The roof and the HVAC system are original to the Civic Center, 400 Fourth St., and need an upgrade, according to Civic Center Director Rob Landers. The main arena also does not have a heating system.
Those much-needed renovations, paid for in part by SPLOST funds, plus other enhancements that include LED display panels and a new sound system are on the docket for the 10,000-seat arena.
“What we’re doing is not necessarily a ‘renovation,’ I would put,” Landers told the Ledger-Enquirer. “What we’re doing is, so to speak, almost upgrades and improvements.”
The upgrades
Landers told attendees at a stakeholders meeting last week that “major capital upgrades” were in the works, including:
- A new roof
- A new HVAC system
- Telescopic seating
- Sound system upgrades
- LED lighting boards
- Wi-Fi upgrades.
Landers said his team identified the needs through conversations with “folks in the community” over the past year.
“A lot of it comes from having those conversations in the community, seeing what we’re missing and also looking at the (national) trends and trying to get the building into the twenty-first century,” he said.
Upgraded Wi-Fi in the arena will, in addition to bolstering the spectator experience, allow the Civic Center to more smoothly stream events. It’ll also allow the arena’s sports tenants to live stream other league games during a River Dragons game onto televisions in the concourse — or stream a football game if there’s a notable one going on, Landers said.
The LED lighting boards, for example, will read “GOOOOOAAAAAL” whenever the Rapids soccer teams score a goal, similar to what spectators see at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Telescopic seats can retract and allow for more flexibility with events, plus give the arena the option to offer premium seating. They’d also be more spacious than the arena’s current seating options for sporting events and concerts.
“They’re the original seats from 1996,” Landers said. “A part of that SPLOST would be for new telescopic seating, which would give us a premium seat. The seats literally would expand — that’s a huge difference when you go to a sporting event.”
Where does funding come from?
Landers said he’s requested around $5 million in SPLOST funding for the building’s infrastructure upgrades, which he said is “extremely fair” and cost-efficient.
That $5 million would cover, according to the city’s estimates, a new sound system (the arena’s current system is also the 1996 original), new roof, new seating and new HVAC.
“That’s significant,” Landers said. “So we’d probably be looking at approval of some of those items into the fourth quarter of next year and starting construction beginning of 2023.”
Funding for the other upgrades comes from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, which was executed by the Small Business Administration in early 2021, Landers said.
“The SPLOST funding that we’re looking at is specific to capital infrastructure,” Landers said. “State-of-the-art upgrades. ... The SPLOST funding is specifically in order to strengthen the structure of the building so that it lasts for another 25 years.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
