‘People will begin to see.’ New look of Rupp Arena starting to take shape.

The renovations taking place to Rupp Arena and the Lexington Convention Center are obvious to anyone passing through downtown Lexington these days.

“We’ve got essentially a five-acre construction site to the west of Rupp Arena,” said Bill Owen, president and CEO. “The arena is now closed for the summer.”

What’s taking place inside — and up top — is less visible but just as active.

“All of the bleachers in the upper arena that are getting converted to chair backs are now gone from the upper-arena risers,” Owen said. “You see towers and a roof riser going up to the roof.”

The towers are in place due to another renovation being made, one that has been due for some time.

“The roof on Rupp Arena is being replaced this summer,” Owen said. “The one that is up there was put on there in 1996, so it has served us well but it’s at the very end of it’s life cycle.”

When the $241 million project is complete in late 2021, Rupp Arena will have a new exterior in addition to upper-level chair-back seating and new club areas for basketball fans to enjoy. The expanded convention facility, which will wrap Rupp Arena but be a separate building, will total 756,593 square feet. Exhibit space will increase from the previous 66,000 square feet to 100,841 square feet, while ballroom space will rise from the previous 17,600 square feet to 25,080 square feet.

The renovations are being carried out by Messer Construction and NBBJ + EOP Architects.

Owen said it won’t be long before the complete vision will begin to take form.

“People will begin to see,” Owen said. “Later this summer and early fall, what the new exterior of Rupp is going to look like eventually all the way around, because there’s new curtain wall being put on the west half of the High Street side of Rupp, so we’re seeing a lot of things happen.”

The new chair-back seating will be in place in time for the 2019-20 basketball season, as will some of the club areas.

“Rupp Arena has long been hallowed ground, home to the greatest tradition in college basketball and the best fans in the world,” Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said in a press release on May 25, 2018, when the renovations were announced. “We are in the midst of an effort to make one of the most special venues in all of sports even better with chair-back seating in the upper level and new club areas, answering feedback we have heard often from our fans.”

This story was originally published June 20, 2019 at 4:08 PM.