Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., Announces $1 Billion in Renovations
Nearly all aspects of the more than 30-year-old arena, which is the home of the Anaheim Ducks, will be refreshed.
The Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., is undertaking a $1 billion renovation project that will reimagine nearly every aspect of the seasoned venue, it was announced Tuesday (April 29) by OC Sports & Entertainment (OCSE), an affiliate of the operator of the city-owned venue.
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Dubbed Honda Center Encore, the privately funded transformation will happen simultaneously to the ongoing development of the arena’s surrounding campus, OC Vibe — a $4 billion, 100-acre entertainment district anchored by the home of the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Ducks. Both Honda Center Encore and OC Vibe are being funded by the Samueli Family, owners of the Anaheim Ducks and longtime stewards of Honda Center.
“We don’t want to have the experience of our guests coming in here to be fantastic when you’re outside of our four walls of the Honda Center, and then you walk in and you’re taken back to 1993,” says OC Vibe CEO Bill Foltz. “We’ve kept the place up. It’s an amazing venue. It really needs to be updated. That process actually started a couple of years ago, where we started bringing in designers and architects.”
The Honda Center Encore transformation will include a new five-story south entrance with a grand arrival experience along with a high-impact digital display to host outdoor viewing parties and community events. Foltz tells Billboard that the display will be used to showcase events occurring at the Honda Center in addition to viewing parties for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), as the arena has signed an agreement to be the designated watch party site for the league. The new south entrance will replace the arena’s current facade.
Once completed — the transformation is due to be finished by 2027 — the arena will have entirely refreshed its food and beverage spaces, including ten brand-new concepts and the introduction of self-service technology to elevate speed and convenience. The transformation will also include a new all-inclusive club on the club level, offering an upscale, hospitality-focused experience for premium guests, with curated food and beverage offerings and unmatched views of the action. The venue will also debut new opera box suites on the main concourse and a full renovation of all 68 existing luxury suites.
Honda Center will additionally install new escalators to improve vertical circulation and introduce four new entry plazas, each with its own distinct social aesthetic. The construction of three new parking structures that will add 6,000 new stalls to the campus is already underway; the new parking options are expected to be complete by October and will increase parking availability by 60%. To keep the parking experience as friction-free as possible, the arena is also eliminating the need for arena guests to purchase parking passes in addition to their ticket.
“When you buy your ticket, it’s an all-inclusive price, meaning all-inclusive of your parking and access when you get here. So, when you pull in our parking garages, you won’t be stopping to check a QR code or to pay somebody,” says Foltz. “You’ll come straight into the parking garages, which are built for speed of access and exit. We think that step alone will get our fans into the excitement 20 to 30 minutes faster than they’re getting in today.”
One of the few aspects of the building that will remain unchanged is the arena’s iconic floors. The more than 30-year-old building will keep its white and burnt orange Italian marble flooring that “look[s] just the same as it did 30 years ago,” Foltz says, adding that the arena will match the color scheme throughout the renovations.
While the renovations will create more points of sale for attendees (especially those in the upper tiers of the arena), Foltz says the majority of the $1 billion renovation will be dedicated to guest experience over direct revenue enhancement. “The bulk [of the renovation] is making this building brand new so it will last another 50 years,” he says, adding, “We have a contract to run Honda Center through the 2060s.”
