Alltel Arena

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ALLTEL Arena

Alltel Arena is an 18,000-seat multi-purpose arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas, directly across the Arkansas River from downtown Little Rock. The arena opened in October 1999. It is home to the following teams:

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Trojans played home games at the arena from the time when the arena opened until the team moved in 2005 to a new stadium, the Jack Stephens Center, on the school's campus in Little Rock. The Arkansas RiverBlades, a defunct ice hockey team of the ECHL, also played at the Alltel Arena.

On August 1, 1995, Pulaski County, Arkansas, voters approved a one-year, one-cent sales tax for the purpose of building a multi-purpose arena, expanding the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, and making renovations to the Main Street bridge between Little Rock and North Little Rock. $20 million of the sales tax proceeds went toward the Convention Center expansion, with the remainder used to build the arena.

That money, combined with a $20 million contribution from the State of Arkansas, $17 million from private sources and $7 million from Little Rock-based Alltel Corporation paid for the construction of a 377,000-square-foot arena, which cost nearly $80 million to build. When the doors opened in 1999, the facility was paid for and there was no public indebtedness.

Alltel Arena logo.
Alltel Arena logo.

Two sites in North Little Rock drew interest from county officials for the proposed arena. The first was a 19.5-acre commercial site west of Interstate 30, which contained a strip mall, a Kroger and an abandoned K-Mart storefront. The second site was an 11.6 acre plot at the foot of the Broadway Bridge.

The Pulaski County Multipurpose Civic Center Facilities Board selected the larger site for the arena in 1996 and paid $3.7 million for the land, some of which was acquired through eminent domain, a move protested in court by several landowners.

The second site later would be chosen for the new baseball stadium, Dickey-Stephens Park, being constructed for the Arkansas Travelers. The state’s only Class AA minor-league baseball team is moving from 73-year-old Ray Winder Field in Little Rock to a new $28 million home in North Little Rock at the start of the 2007 season.

The arena was the home of the 2003 and 2006 Southeastern Conference Women's Basketball Tournament and the 2000 Sun Belt Conference men’s basketball tournament. According to media reports, the SEC is interested in the arena hosting the women basketball tournament again in 2009. The Arena holds the all-time attendance record for an SEC Women's Tournament when 43,642 people attended the event in 2003.

The arena will host portions of the first and second rounds of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament in March of 2008 and the SEC Gymnastics Championships in 2007.

The arena hosted the Arkansas Awana Games in 2006 and WWE No Mercy in 2002.

The arena is also used for other events: Concerts (seating capacity is between 15,000 and 18,000 for end-stage concerts; the arena has an 80-by-40-foot portable stage); rodeos and auto racing (seating capacity is 14,000); and trade shows and conventions (there are 28,000 square feet of arena floor space plus 7,050 square feet of meeting space and 2,580 square feet of pre-function space).

The arena is owned by the Multi-Purpose Civic Center Facilities Board for Pulaski County. The arena was designed by the Civic Center Design Team (CCDT), Burt Taggart & Associates, Architects/Engineers, The Wilcox Group, Garver & Garver Engineering and Rosser International of Atlanta.

Current arenas in the NBA Development League
Eastern Division Western Division
Alltel Arena | Austin Convention Center | Bismarck Civic Center | Dodge Arena (2007) | Expo Square Pavilion | Fort Worth Convention Center | Sioux Falls Arena | Wells Fargo Arena (2007) Anaheim Convention Center | Broomfield Event Center | McKay Events Center (2007) | Qwest Arena | Rabobank Arena | Staples Center | Tingley Coliseum
Current arenas in the af2
American Conference National Conference
Allen County War Memorial Coliseum | Chevrolet Centre | Everett Events Center | Freedom Hall | The MARK of the Quad Cities | Qwest Arena | Rabobank Arena | Resch Center | Selland Arena | Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena | Stockton Arena | Times Union Center | Toyota Center | U.S. Bank Arena | Wachovia Arena | Verizon Wireless Arena Alltel Arena | Amarillo Civic Center | American Bank Center | Berry Center | Birmingham Jefferson Convention Center | CenturyTel Center | CityBank Coliseum | Dodge Arena | Ford Center | Germain Arena | Gray Civic Center | Laredo Entertainment Center | Tulsa Convention Center | Von Braun Center

Coordinates: 34°45′18.40″N, 92°15′51.98″W

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