New Arena for U. of Louisville Basketball Teams Is Unveiled

Rendering of new downtown arena for Louisville, Ky. (Louisville Arena Authority image)

University of Louisville officials joined the city’s mayor and Kentucky’s governor today for an event at which the design of the city’s new 22,000-seat downtown arena was unveiled. The university’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will be primary users of the facility, due to open in 2010.

According to a university news release, the 700,000-square-foot arena will be located between the Ohio River and a new two-level plaza that will offer space for informal seating as well as public gatherings. The building, designed by the architecture firm HOK Sport, will have limestone panels, expanses of glass, a curving roof, and a huge, curving window overlooking the river. An article in The Courier-Journal gives the price tag as $252-million.

Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, said the arena would “truly be Kentucky’s Times Square and Rockefeller Center.”