BUZZER BEATER
Developer vows CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore is ready for next week’s CIAA basketball tournaments despite ongoing renovations
Work is not yet finished on the $250 million renovation of CFG Bank Arena that started last year even as the downtown venue prepares for its first event next week.
CFG Bank Arena, formerly known as Baltimore Arena and Royal Farms Arena, is set to host the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association men’s and women’s basketball tournaments Tuesday through Saturday. But the revamp is still in its final stages in preparation for an April 7 concert featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band — the event that CFG Bank Arena and its developer, California-based investment firm Oak View Group, are calling the venue’s grand opening.
Tim Leiweke, Oak View Group’s chairman and CEO, said that while most parts of the venue, including the exterior, are still under construction, CFG Bank Arena is ready to host the basketball tournaments for the CIAA, the nation’s oldest historically Black athletic conference. The court, lower bowl of seating, locker rooms, broadcast facilities, bathrooms and some concession stands are all ready for the dual 12-team tournaments, he said.
“We committed to them that we’d have the building finished as it related to the parts of the building they needed,” said Leiweke, former general manager of the Baltimore Blast. “That was our commitment to the tournament. The tournament is a high priority for us. The experience from the tournament next week will be better than anything anyone’s seen, even though we’re still a work in progress. They will see the difference, and it will be fantastic.”
Leiweke is “confident” that CFG Bank Arena will be fully operational in time for the Springsteen concert, as well as the Eagles show April 8. For next week, though, he’s asking CIAA tournament attendees for “patience” as only a limited part of the arena will be open.
“They’re going to see a lot of the new arena, and
it’s going to be a great experience,” he said. “But we also have work to do to get finished for April 7 and 8.”
CFG Bank CEO Bill Wiedel said his expectation since the Baltimore-based company was awarded the venue’s naming rights last fall was that construction would not be finished in time for the CIAA Tournament.
“The Oak View Group has kept every commitment they made to us,” Wiedel said.
The city-owned venue, which Oak View Group is paying $1.75 million per year plus inflation to lease, has been closed since March 2022. The project includes investments from Grammy Award-winning musician
Pharrell Williams, Maryland-raised NBA star Kevin Durant through his firm Thirty Five Ventures and former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.
The renovation, the latest for an arena that has undergone several face-lifts and name changes since opening as the Baltimore Civic Center in 1962, was originally expected to cost $200 million, but Leiweke said the price tag is up to approximately $250 million.
The expected changes to the arena include additional seats and suites, updated concourses, improved acoustics and a redesigned exterior. An Oak View Group spokesperson said enough seating will be available for the tournaments. The arena’s capacity when construction is completed will be approximately 14,000.
“Oak View Group has been a tremendous partner and has delivered exactly as agreed,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement. “The City cannot wait for the CIAA Tournament and the April concerts in the new CFG Bank Arena.”
Baltimore will be home to the CIAA Tournament for the second season in a row after hosting the conference last year for the first time since 1952. The original contract between the city and the CIAA was set to expire after this year, but the two parties agreed in June to a two-year extension through 2025. Before moving them to Baltimore, the CIAA hosted its basketball tournaments in Charlotte, North Carolina, for 15 years.
The CIAA, founded in 1912, is an NCAA Division II conference that consists mostly of historically Black colleges and universities on the East Coast, including Maryland’s Bowie State. Last year, the tournaments drew 36,390 unique attendees, according to an economic impact report from the CIAA and Visit Baltimore, and about 66,000 total attendees over the 22 basketball games. The tournaments’ final day drew a total attendance of 13,207, a number that exceeded attendance for the championship games in Charlotte by almost 4,000.
Visit Baltimore President and CEO Al Hutchinson said he’s “excited” for the upcoming tournaments and that he has “no concerns” about CFG Bank Arena’s ability to host them.
“Our team has taken a walkthrough; the CIAA staff, their commissioner, some of the presidents have done a walkthrough; and everybody is very excited and optimistic about where we’re going to be with CFG Bank Arena,” Hutchinson said. “We’re going to be basketball-ready. We’re going to have some new areas that we didn’t have last year. We’re going to have 12 suites for the 12 presidents, we’re going to have a new VIP area, we’re going to have a new basketball floor.”
Once the tournaments are over, work will resume to finish the renovation before the Springsteen concert.
Leiweke said there’s “not a way in hell” the arena won’t be ready for the concert, adding that the remaining work, including parts of the concourse, stage and the building’s exterior, will be finished by April 7.
“We are 100% going to be ready for The Boss,” he said. “We will be ready for both those shows. The building will be ready to go, I am absolutely certain of that.”
Springsteen’s show at CFG Bank Arena won’t be his only Baltimore concert this year. His tour revealed Tuesday that he also will be playing Sept. 9 at Camden Yards — the ballpark’s third major standalone concert. Billy Joel and Paul McCartney played at Oriole Park in 2019 and 2022, respectively.
Other concerts scheduled at CFG Bank Arena this year include Lizzo (May 9), Janet Jackson (May 13) and Thomas Rhett (July 21).
The CIAA Tournament begins Tuesday with four first-round games from the women’s bracket and two from the men’s. The championship games are scheduled for next Saturday at 1 p.m. for the men and 4 p.m. for the women.