IUPUI is moving its home men’s basketball games and selected women’s games to the renovated State Fairgrounds Coliseum starting with the 2014-15 season.
The move will give Jaguar teams a home gym with a 6,841-seat capacity rather than the 1,200-seat capacity at IUPUI’s current home gym, called The Jungle. The Fairgrounds Coliseum is currently closed for a 22-month, $63-million renovation and is scheduled to reopen in summer 2014.
At a public announcement today at the Coliseum attended by players, coaches and others, officials described the move as the culmination of talks that began last summer between IUPUI Athletic Director Michael Moore and State Fairgrounds Executive Director Cindy Hoye.
IUPUI and fairgrounds officials reached an agreement fairly quickly once Moore called Hoye to float the idea and the two met to discuss us. The two met just as the state fair was starting, she said.
“The deal was put together,” Hoye said, “with two corn dogs and a lemon shakeup.”
The Coliseum will include fully renovated locker rooms, a suspended state-of-the-art double ribbon video board and hospitality options throughout fully updated concourses, officials said.
The facility, formerly the Pepsi Coliseum, first opened in 1939.
The initial agreement is a five-year deal, officials said.
“Once the new Coliseum opens in 2014, people are going to fall in love with it again,” Hoye said. “It will still have its historic feel, but it will also have the modern amenities needed for today’s sports and entertainment events.”
The Indiana Pacers played at the Coliseum from 1967 to 1974 and won American Basketball Association championships in 1970, 1972 and 1973.
“This building represents the opportunity for our program, quite frankly, to catch up with the rest of the Division 1 programs in the state,” Moore said. The historic gym will also become a “pride piece” for IUPUI and its fans, he said.
“To be able to walk into a brand new building and see Division 1 basketball,” he said, “I think there’s value in that to the institution and to the Indianapolis community.”
according to indystar.com
