The North Charleston Coliseum is a 14,000-seat multi-purpose arena in North Charleston, South Carolina. It is part of the North Charleston Convention Center Complex, which also includes a Performing Arts Center, and is owned by the City of North Charleston and managed by SMG. The Coliseum was built in 1993, and is located on the access road to the Charleston International Airport. The Coliseum is home to the ECHL's South Carolina Stingraysprofessional ice hockey team and serves as an alternate home for the Charleston Southern University basketball team. It is the area's primary venue for concerts and other major indoor events expected to draw large crowds. The Coliseum is currently undergoing an expansion project intended to increase concourse space, provide additional points of sale, and create venues for banquets, receptions, and other smaller-scale events. The arena contains 9,875 permanent seats, including 7,175 in the upper deck, and 1,646 riser seats.
Tenants
The Coliseum is the current home of the South Carolina Stingrays, a minor league professional ice hockey team that plays in the ECHL. When construction first began on the arena there were no plans to include ice-making equipment. However, after an ECHL franchise application for the city of North Charleston had been pre-approved by the league in April 1992, the city council approved the funds required for the installation of an ice surface into the building that was already well under construction. The Stingrays began play there for the 1993-94 ECHL season. It is the alternate home arena for the Charleston Southern University basketball team. Typically, Charleston Southern University uses the Coliseum for non-conference games that draw audiences greater than their home arena's 798-seat capacity, such as cross-town rivals College of Charleston and The Citadel. Furthermore, its size allows them to play major conference teams such as Virginia Tech at home. In addition, the North Charleston Coliseum has hosted the Big South Conference and the Southern Conference basketball tournaments. The Coliseum has previously hosted arena and indoor football teams, as well as a National Basketball Development League team, as well as an all female production of Ben Hur that drew several noise and indecency complaints.
Planning for the coliseum began in 1985, when a city-sponsored study determined that the city could support a venue seating 10,000-plus people. In October of that year, the McNair Realty and Development company of Greenville, South Carolina, who owned the Centre Pointe development tract, donated of that land valued at approximately $100,000 an acre to the city for construction of the coliseum. The coliseum was originally planned to be part of a redevelopment dubbed "City Center," which was to include the coliseum, a convention center, a performing arts center, a transportation hub, a library, an art gallery and museum, an arts school, parking garages, and scenic park areas, and was to have been completed by 2000. As of June 2011, only the coliseum, convention center, and performing arts center have been completed. In September 1988, the city considered five architectural firms for design and supervision of the coliseum's construction, eventually settling on Odell Associates, Inc. City Council approved a $25 million budget for design and construction of the coliseum and by February 1991 accepted a $19.8 million bid for the construction contract by McDevitt and Street Co. of Charlotte, North Carolina. Construction began on April 29, 1991, with an estimated completion time of 20 months. In September 1992, the City Council approved $879,000 to fund installation of an ice rink in the coliseum, which at that time was scheduled for completion by December 26 of that year. The ECHL Board of Governors met in November 1992 to vote on bringing a hockey franchise to the Charleston area. At that meeting, the league approved creation of the expansion franchise for the 1993-94 ECHL season, giving the coliseum its first professional sports team as a tenant.
Grand opening
The coliseum opened its doors on January 29, 1993 to a capacity crowd with its first event, the World Cup Figure Skating Champions ice skating exhibition. The opening night was plagued by parking issues that resulted in traffic congestion on local roads and up to an hour delay in clearing the parking lots following the show. The following night saw another sellout crowd for a concert featuring country music star Alan Jackson, for which the traffic problems were reduced due to early arrivals and improved traffic direction. The city expedited the expansion of available parking spaces from 4,000 to 5,030 soon after.
Accident
On November 10, 1997, the 5-ton coliseum scoreboard dropped while it was being lowered, landing on and killing Billie Wayne Garrett, a rodeo volunteer from Columbia. Coliseum officials believed the issue was with the board's hoisting mechanism, which was manufactured by a New Jersey company that had recently experienced hoist failures in two of its mechanisms, one resulting in a scoreboard dropping to the floor. The fall also caused a crack in the coliseum floor, but it was repaired and no damage was found to have been done to the piping system that makes ice for the coliseum floor. Garrett's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company that manufactured the scoreboard, the company that had recently inspected and passed the scoreboard, and Ogden Entertainment, the coliseum's managing company. The lawsuit was settled for $3.5 million. An upgraded scoreboard featuring improved video panels and a safer hoisting setup was installed in October 1999. This scoreboard was replaced in 2012 by another video scoreboard, part of a $21 million renovation that saw the addition of two food courts, the largest of which is the Montague Terrace, as well as a new ticket office and upgrades to eight luxury suites.
New management
In August 2000, Ogden Entertainment—which had managed the coliseum since its opening in 1993—was purchased by Aramark. Aramark urged city officials to transfer management of the coliseum to SMG, of which Aramark was a half owner at the time, in an effort to leverage SMG's entertainment industry connections to bring more concerts to the area. In an effort to bolster attendance at the coliseum, which had been operating at a loss for two years, SMG took over management of the coliseum in late 2001, agreeing to construct a large freestanding marquee visible from Interstate 526 as part of the management contract.
Expansion
An ambitious expansion project was approved for financing by the city of North Charleston in 2009. The expansion consists of extensions built onto the Coliseum's north and south entrances, increasing concourse space by and adding up to 40 additional points of sale for concessions. The expansion will allow for renovation of existing suites and upgrades to the Coliseum's sound system, spotlights, and rigging bridges. Construction on the south side extension, dubbed Montague Terrace, commenced in August 2010 with a planned completion date of October 2011. Construction of the north side extension was completed in 2012.
