Memorial Coliseum gutted. Take a look inside UK’s $82 million fixer upper as work progresses.

For Mitch Barnhart and UK Athletics, the $82 million renovation of Memorial Coliseum has been a goal for nearly a decade. It’s finally coming to fruition.

When construction began in the summer, just a few months after the UK Board of Trustees approved the start of the project, the ideal timeline was clear — completed and ready to go in time for the 2024-25 athletic season. Though the gym is stripped, empty of any familiar signage or seating and requires any and all visitors to wear a hard hat and a high-visibility vest, UK Athletics told the Herald-Leader late last week that everything is on schedule.

First opened in 1950 as the home of Kentucky men’s basketball, it’s difficult at this point to recognize the gym that holds 73 years of history. The ceiling has been ripped open, the seating removed and the large video board separated and housed in various indoor facilities around the athletic campus.

Upon entering the active construction zone, one’s eyes are immediately drawn to the area formerly holding the massive video board. Long removed at this point, the video board will be repurposed, with parts of it to be used for smaller displays in the gym. According to UK Athletics, a center video hub — not dissimilar to the one in Rupp Arena — made more sense than what was used before due to a new, premium seating area.

The video board isn’t the only thing being repurposed in the ambitious project. Since August, items from Memorial Coliseum, including seatbacks and seat numbers, have been available for sale to fans as keepsake items. They are still for sale on ukteamshop.com.

Seating removal was quite the operation near the start of construction. Unlike at Rupp Arena, where seating is simply bolted to the ground, chairs at Memorial Coliseum did not have legs. Seats were mounted on the back and then installed in evenly-spaced, large holes across the rows. Removal would’ve gone much faster if the seats had been destroyed, but UK Athletics wanted to preserve some of the history.

The other side of the gym, where bleachers once were, also received special attention. Those bleachers are being repurposed into decorative accents in the renovated Memorial Coliseum as an homage to its history.

The plan is also to install vomitories, or large passages to enter the gym from the concourse. Gone are the multiple hallways leading to seating, and they will be replaced by fewer, but more spacious and convenient entryways.

Per UK Athletics, everything so far has gone to plan. Not that any significant construction has yet taken place; demolition takes a tremendous amount of time and work. One might think there’s a good chance of discovering old relics or memorabilia lost to time, but so far all that’s been uncovered is an old phone booth behind a now-removed wall.

While the displaced teams — gymnastics, volleyball, women’s basketball and STUNT — have had to find alternative homes for their 2023-24 seasons, the renovation project has been on coaches’ minds for several years — and everybody’s looking forward to the finished product. New locker rooms, updated practice facilities and upgrades both in and outside Memorial Coliseum are promised to those who have relocated for 2023-24, and have been used by the coaches for recruiting purposes for the past few seasons.

As far as fans go, including the placing of seat numbers and reticketing for Memorial Coliseum once renovations are completed, UK Athletics has not yet finalized the details. Current season ticket holders were told that maintaining season tickets in 2023-24 during renovations would put them in the best position for the 2024-25 season once the displaced sports were returned to Memorial Coliseum.

This story was originally published November 1, 2023 at 6:58 AM.

Caroline Makauskas

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-379-9489

Caroline Makauskas is a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader. She covers Kentucky women’s basketball and other sports around Central Kentucky. Born and raised in Illinois, Caroline graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in Journalism and Radio/Television/Film in May 2020. Support my work with a digital subscription