Bon Secours Wellness Arena (formerly the BI-LO Center; The Well) is a multi-purpose arena in

Greenville, South Carolina Greenville ( ; ) is a city in Greenville County, South Carolina, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, sixth-most pop ...

, United States. The arena serves as the home of the

Greenville Swamp Rabbits The Greenville Swamp Rabbits are a professional ice hockey team located in Greenville, South Carolina. They play in the South Division of the ECHL's Eastern Conference and play their home games at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in downtown Gr ...

of the

ECHL The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a minor professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams across the United States and Canada. Competitively, it is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL). The ...

History

The arena opened as the BI-LO Center in 1998, and cost

US $ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

63 million. It replaced Greenville's outdated and under-repaired

Greenville Memorial Auditorium Greenville Memorial Auditorium was a 7,500-seat multi-purpose arena built in 1958 that was located in Greenville, South Carolina. It hosted local sporting events, concerts and the Ringling Brothers Circus until the Bon Secours Wellness Arena op ...

, which was located across the street from the new arena and had been imploded on September 20, 1997. The arena naming rights were purchased by Dutch grocer

Ahold Koninklijke Ahold N.V. was a Dutch multinational retail company based in Zaandam, Netherlands. Founded in 1887 by Albert Heijn Sr., the company initially began as a single grocery store in Oostzaan and became the largest grocery chain in the ...

, then-owner of BI-LO, which had been founded in nearby Mauldin and was still based there at the time. When it was built, it passed Columbia's Carolina Coliseum as the largest arena in the state of South Carolina, a distinction it held until 2002, when Colonial Life Arena was built in Columbia. On September 18, 2013, the BI-LO Center was officially renamed the Bon Secours Wellness Arena after the Bon Secours Health System purchased the naming rights. Bon Secours Wellness Arena was one of two regional hosts during the

2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament was a single-elimination tournament of 68 teams to determine the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2022–23 NCAA Divis ...

, alongside

Climate Pledge Arena Climate Pledge Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located north of downtown Seattle in the entertainment complex known as the Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's Fair, for which it was ...

in Seattle. This was the first season the NCAA had two regional brackets in each city, instead of the traditional set-up of four cities, one for each regional bracket.

Seating capacity

As a concert venue, the Bon Secours Wellness Arena can seat approximately 15,000 spectators, depending on the positioning of the stage. In addition, the arena features 30 luxury suites and 840 club seats.

References

{{Authority control Sports venues completed in 1998 Buildings and structures in Greenville, South Carolina Greenville Groove Ice hockey venues in South Carolina Ice hockey venues in the United States Sports venues in Greenville, South Carolina Indoor arenas in South Carolina