What’s on the drawing board for PNC Arena renovations? Raleigh, Wake leaders get a look
With $300 million to use in renovating and upgrading PNC Arena, Centennial Authority chairman Philip Isley is determined to get the “most bang from the buck.”
How much of a bang? That’s still to be determined as the authority, the arena landlord, mulls over the different options that have been proposed and the pricing.
Isley and Jeff Merritt, the authority’s executive director, spent a good part of Tuesday detailing those options, first for the Raleigh City Council. They made a similar presentation to Wake County Commissioners later Tuesday.
“We think it’s important for them to know that we’re not sitting around idling, trying to figure out how to spend all this money,” Isley said in an N&O interview after the council presentation. “We have been very intentional in how we’re going to spend the money, what we’re trying to draw and design, and then put it out to market and see what we can build.
“They need to see that, and frankly we’re both in this big municipal/authority building expansion. With the (Raleigh) convention center expansion and our building enhancement, we’re sort of in it together. But ultimately it’s important for them to appreciate, ‘Hey, this is happening and we’re going to be really good stewards of the money allocated us.’”
Project timeline
Merritt said the initial renovation work for the project would begin immediately after the 2024-25 Carolina Hurricanes season ends, noting he hoped that would be after winning another Stanley Cup.
“When I left the building this morning they were making the ice for this season, and when they melt the ice we’ll be starting this enhancement process,” he said.
The arena, opened in 1999, is the home floor for N.C. State men’s basketball – a 2024 ACC championship banner will be hung, along with another that says “2024 NCAA Final Four.” The venue also holds numerous events ranging from concerts and rodeos to WWE shows and the EA Apex Global Series Championship.
Initially opened as the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena, it has been named the RBC Center and then PNC Arena through naming-rights agreements.
A new naming-rights contract should soon be finalized.
“We want to make this a world-class venue for the next 25 years,” Merritt said. “We want it to be unique to the region. We don’t just want a cookie-cutter. We want to grow our revenue opportunities, which is always important, but we want to be a catalyst for the community.”
A few members of the authority were on hand Tuesday for the meeting. So, too, was Brian Fork, the newly installed CEO of Hurricanes Holdings LLC, who will oversee all business units including the hockey team, the arena and the mixed-use real estate development outside the arena.
New lease made project possible
The Hurricanes’ have extended their arena lease through 2044, a provision needed to be place for the authority to receive the $300 million in tourism tax money. Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon also has plans to turn the 80 acres of parking spaces around the building into the mixed-use development.
The land will need to go through a rezoning process, Fork said Tuesday. Some initial changes in the parking areas will not begin after after the Wolfpack’s 2025 football season.
“With tailgating, there are lots of really good ideas from the developer,” Isley told the Wake commissioners. “By contract, there has to be a set amount of acreage that is dedicated to tailgating. There are conversations we’re going through right now, literally every week, trying to figure out what that might look like and everybody is happy about.”
Merritt had a number of slides showing the renderings of the proposed arena renovation changes, flashing them up on the video boards of the council’s meeting room. Merritt closed by showing a rendering of the front of the arena, calling it a “front door that makes it look like we just built a new building.”
The arena is 25 years old and renovations have been in the planning stages for a decade, slowed by the pandemic. Architecture firms Gensler Sports and Raleigh-based LS3P were hired in February to handle the design phase.
“Ultimately, we hope we will see a lot of the things we have shown you today -- if we can pay for it,” Isley told the commissioners. “That’s our goal.”
Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said when the arena was first proposed, “People were saying, ‘Oh, development will happen around it.’ No, nothing ever happened. Now, it’s going to.
“Thirty years later, the vision we had hoped for is now happening and we’re a part of the group making that happen. This is really going to change our community for the better. It can be a game-changer.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2024 at 4:17 PM with the headline "What’s on the drawing board for PNC Arena renovations? Raleigh, Wake leaders get a look."
