SPORTS $100-million Bell Centre facelift adds Wi-Fi, seat
Canadiens’ home gets a facelift inside and out, gains one seat in capacity
It’s not exactly dog-eared, badly frayed or falling apart at the seams.
But with its 20th birthday only five months away, the Bell Centre is undergoing a major, nearly $100 million facelift inside and out, with much work already done and plenty more on tap during the next three years.
Geoff Molson, owner and president of the Canadiens, the Bell Centre and the Evenko concert and Spectra festival promotion companies, rolled out ambitious plans Wednesday morning during a news conference just inside the arena’s front doors.
“Overall, it was time for us to make the Bell Centre look fresh and new for our fans,” Molson said during an afternoon talk in his seventh-floor office.
Every seat in the arena bowl has been replaced, with the arena’s capacity for hockey having grown by one in the process.
“We found one more seat,” Molson had joked earlier, a Canadiens full house boosted to 21,288.
Wireless Internet access — WiFi has frustratingly been hit-andmiss many nights — should be reliable throughout the building.
Still to come are these renovations that will benefit fans and touring shows:
Redesign of corridors and new video screens to be added Revamping of food concessions Renovation of loges and salons Backstage areas reorganized Optimization of mechanical and staging equipment
Updating of La Mise au Jeu and 9-4-10 restaurants.
Much is being done outside the arena, as well. Molson has presented a plan to the city of Montreal to transform Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montréal (as de la Gauchetière was renamed between de la Montagne and Peel Sts.) into a pedestrian avenue, complete with a glassed-in entryway to the arena.
And on Thursday morning, a ribbon-cutting will officially open La Place des Canadiens on the east side of the Bell Centre.
It is the rebranded Centennial Plaza, which stood on the west side of the arena — complete with statues of the legends, retiredjersey monuments, historic-moment markers and thousands of fan-purchased bricks — from its inauguration on Dec. 4, 2008, until it was given the boot by the first phase of the Tour des Canadiens highrise condo project, still under construction.
Molson said details of a major sports restaurant, to be housed in the condo attached to the arena, soon would be announced.
All of this work, he explained, is being undertaken “to maintain the standard of excellence and quality of experience for visitors to the Bell Centre,” which regularly is near the top of North American arena rankings.
Molson spoke of the Canadiens’ home being in the heart of a realestate boom, about a dozen new buildings around the arena expected to generate $70 million in annual tax revenues.
More than two million spectators enter the Bell Centre yearly, he said; that grows to 2.9 million including Evenko-promoted events in Montreal, for a $338 million economic injection. Bell Centre visitors spend $108 million annually in nearby restaurants and shops.
The economic impact of Groupe CH’s activities are generous and wide-ranging, a KPMG study found this month, helping create more than 3,400 full-time jobs while drawing 272,000 tourists from outside Quebec to attend events.
“The Bell Centre is supposed to be the best home for a hockey team in the world,” Molson said of his huge home-reno project. “We would never want to put that at risk.”
The Bell Centre is supposed to be the best home for a hockey team in the world. We would never want to put that at risk.