Arena Upgrade To Include Video Display Board Upon Approval, Project May Reach $2.6 Million
Spokane Chiefs fans can look forward to an improved video system next season. The Public Facilities District board in Spokane has approved some upgrades and is considering others that together could total $2.6 million, said Arena general manager Kevin Twohig.
Twohig was here for Wednesday night’s Game 3 of the Western Hockey League West Division championship series.
The biggest improvement is a $1.4 million video display board to be unveiled at a public open house in September. A fifth anniversary celebration of the building’s September 1995 opening is planned.
“It’s an incredible step forward,” Twohig said, “going away from a projection system to an LED-based technology that is brighter, clearer and better, particularly for hockey. The vision of the puck is much clearer.”
LED stands for light-emitting diode.
The new display board is about the same size - the face is about 15-by-20 feet - but the images will be stronger. Other projects include the addition of two permanent luxury suites and the conversion of two storage rooms to “acceptable space for NCAA events.”
Spokane will host the NCAA women’s West Regional basketball tournament next March. In March 2003, the first and second rounds of the NCAA men’s event, a West sub-regional, will be held in the Arena.
“The NCAA requires not only a media workroom but a large interview space,” Twohig said. “We don’t need those spaces year-round and on a continuing basis, so we’re going to clear storage rooms out during those events in 2001 and 2003, by doing simple things - adding more lighting and a little more electrical and ventilation, stuff we can turn off or put away when we’re done and go back to a storage activity.
“We’re also looking at adding a multifunction meeting space at the west end of the Arena,” Twohig said.
“It’s driven by the NCAA events,” he said. “They just have so many requirements for space that we don’t have enough square footage to give them everything they want, even using all the storage rooms. This will address their issue, but also become a revenue center for us for all of our events.” Adding 1,900 seats in the upper west end “is on our capital improvements list but there just isn’t any demand for it right now,” Twohig said. “Most likely we won’t add those seats until there’s a single event that absolutely demands that we have them or they won’t come.”
Spokane, in conjunction with Washington State University, has a good chance of hosting the 2005 NCAA women’s volleyball championships, Twohig said. A bid will probably go out this year.
The city may also be the site of a future West Coast Conference men’s tournament, even though “that’s a very tight time of the year for us,” Twohig said. “With State B basketball, the Chiefs, the WIAA (Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association) wanting to bring the State 2A tournament to Spokane eventually, there’s all this stuff that lands in March.”