Toyota Center receiving $30M lift
LAKE CHARLES, La. — When the lights come on in Toyota Center on Sunday, heralding the return of basketball with the Rockets’ annual open practice and related festivities, Houston’s home will shine brighter, with new rings of lights circling the top of the lower bowl like a crown. But that is just the start of renovations and upgrades underway or planned for the arena.
The projects will range from enormous in the center of the arena to smaller and more subtle, costing $30 million to start, including last year’s upgrades to the club suites, and to bring a refresh to the arena that on Friday marked 20 years since it’s opening night.
“We started Phase 2 of the rebuild,” Rockets president of business operations Gretchen Sheirr said with a nod to the team’s off-cited next step. “Now, it’s phase two of Toyota Center.”
The more serious stages of planning began three seasons ago with Sheirr and other front office staff touring arenas around the country. It began with the upgrades to clubs before the more extensive renovations began this offseason with more planned for each of the next two offseasons, ranging from backstage improvements to a new center arena scoreboard.
“I think the first thing people will see is we have added another LED ribbon board above (the original) and another ribbon below. That’s used for game prethat sentation and hyping up the crowd and sometimes for partners and sponsors. We also updated the two end zone scoreboards, so they are both 10 percent bigger than they were before. We have four new signs over the voms. Those are now digital, so much more modern. That is what they’ll notice this year.”
Even those upgrades can make an arena look newer, as with the renovations of Utah’s Delta Center, one of the first arenas the Rockets checked out when planning. The end zone scoreboards, updated 10 years ago when the new center scoreboard was installed, especially looked dated. The LED ribbon had not been updated since the arena opened. The new ribbons are, Sheirr said, “twice the clarity.”
“That will certainly modernize the building,” Sheirr said. “That’ll be really bright.
“That’s phase one of the project. Phase two will start whenever basketball season is over this year. All of the equipment that will control these boards will be upgraded so we will have a brand-new control room. We are relocating it. And there will be a new center hung scoreboard.”
The current scoreboard, the second in Toyota Center, was the most high-definition available when built and installed before the 2012-13 season.
“It’s a great board,” Sheirr said. “It was the first board in the NBA of that size. But if you have a 10year-old TV in your house and it’s a great TV and there’s nothing wrong with TV, there are still significantly better options available.
“The new board will have an underbelly for people that are sitting close to the floor so they will have a different view. They won’t have to look straight up.
“The current board has some areas that if you’re in the upper bowl can block the side view. This one will be fully curved so there is no obstructed view. And then, the boards on the end will be about 20 percent larger than they are now. Everyone in the end zone and the upper bowl will have a much cleaner view. And the folks on the side, it’ll come much closer to them. And if you are down low, you’ll have that under belly to view.”
There will be new graband-go concession stands after the success of the first two added last season. The Sire Spirits club will have a season-ticket option for fans that in addition to the ledge dining wanted to hang out and watch games in the club.
Lance McCullers Jr.’s Maven Coffee will open a location. There will be a Garrison Brothers Distillery bar new to the upper concourse. There will be updates to the MemorialHermann children’s sky court.
The next phase, however, includes upgrades in mind but not entirely determined and could last through several years. The arena will host the Republican National Convention in 2028, and Sheirr said a renovated Toyota Center will “be in the mix” when bidding opens for future NBA All-Star games.
“To be in the mix for that,” she said, “Toyota Center needs to be renovated.
“This summer we spent a lot of time really planning for the future of the arena. We’re mapping what those changes are going to be, what the timeline is going to be. Our goal is to make sure we keep the facility the most premium live sports and entertainment venue in the city. That is going to include what does the concourse look like, what does the main entrance look like, what does the team shop look like, what events can this building serve.”
Improving the setting for basketball, however, is still the primary goal.
“One of our biggest priorities is to host as many basketball games as possible, which means to play as many basketball games as possible, and to host as many concerts,” Sheirr said. “The in-season tournament will be a very different look and feel for the home games we have. ‘
There is a hope that the other conspicuous difference will come with winning more regularly, but phase two of rebuilding the team coinciding with phase 1 of renovations is more of a coincidence than a plan.
“Maybe a lucky coincidence,” Sheirr said. “We started looking at this in 2020. This is the timeline when things need to happen. COVID slowed that down. We’ve been doing this for a while but now we’re at a point we can do it fast forward with a tighter timeline.”