Charlotte Coliseum was a multi-purpose sports and entertainment arena located in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

. It was operated by the Charlotte Coliseum Authority, which also oversees the operation of

Bojangles' Coliseum Bojangles Coliseum (originally Charlotte Coliseum and formerly Independence Arena and Cricket Arena) is an 8,600-seat multi-purpose arena located in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is operated by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which als ...

(which was called Charlotte Coliseum prior to 1988), the

Charlotte Convention Center The Charlotte Convention Center is a convention center located in Charlotte, North Carolina. It opened in 1995 and attracts more than half a million visitors each year. It was designed by Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates (TVS). It ha ...

, and

Ovens Auditorium Ovens Auditorium is an auditorium located adjacent to Bojangles' Coliseum, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Opened in 1955, Ovens has a seating capacity of 2,455 and has hosted over 7,500 events (as of April 2009). It is managed by the Charlotte Regi ...

. It is best known as the home of the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United ...

Charlotte Hornets The Charlotte Hornets are an American professional basketball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hornets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division, and pla ...

from 1988 to 2002, and the

Charlotte Bobcats Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populous ...

(now the second incarnation of the Hornets) from 2004 to 2005. The Coliseum hosted 371 consecutive NBA sell-outs from December 1988 to November 1997, which includes seven playoff games. It hosted its final NBA

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

game on October 26, 2005, a preseason game between the

and the

Indiana Pacers The Indiana Pacers are an American professional basketball team based in Indianapolis. The Pacers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The Pacers were first est ...

. The city of Charlotte sold the property and the building, along with a

Maya Lin Maya Ying Lin (born October 5, 1959) is an American designer and sculptor. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memoria ...

commission outside it, was demolished via implosion on June 3, 2007.

History

Construction on the Charlotte Coliseum began in 1986Last of its kind: Charlotte Coliseum to be demolished Sunday
updated June 1, 2007 and was opened on August 11, 1988, with a dedication by the Reverend

Billy Graham William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...

. At the time the venue was seen as state-of-the-art, complete with luxury boxes and a large eight-sided video scoreboard.

George Shinn George Shinn (born May 11, 1941) is the former owner of the Charlotte/ New Orleans Hornets, as well as the Charlotte Knights and Gastonia Rangers minor league baseball teams, along with the Raleigh–Durham Skyhawks, of the World League of ...

had used the under-construction arena as his

hole card Community card poker refers to any game of poker that uses community cards (also called "shared cards"), which are cards dealt face up in the center of the table and shared by all players. In these games, each player is dealt an incomplete hand f ...

to get the NBA to place a team in the city. With almost 24,000 seats, it was not only the largest venue in the league, but the largest basketball-specific arena ever to serve as a full-time home for an NBA team. Some thought the Coliseum was too big, but Shinn believed the area's longstanding support for

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

made the Coliseum a more-than-viable home for an NBA team. The day after the dedication, the United States Olympic basketball team was scheduled to play an exhibition game at the Coliseum. While preparing for the event, the 40,000-pound, $3.2 million scoreboard was being repositioned when it struck the ceiling and crashed to the floor, destroying both it and the court it landed on—an alternate floor was brought from

Independence Arena Bojangles Coliseum (originally Charlotte Coliseum and formerly Independence Arena and Cricket Arena) is an 8,600-seat multi-purpose arena located in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is operated by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which als ...

in time for the game that night. The Hornets would go on to lead the NBA in attendance in eight of its first nine seasons playing in "The Hive". At one point, they sold out 371 consecutive games—almost nine consecutive seasons. However, poorly received decisions made by Shinn, as well as anger over personal scandals involving him, caused fan support to dwindle, and by then the once-sparkling Coliseum was seen by many as outdated and no longer suitable to be the home of a major professional sports team. When the Hornets relocated to

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005. This was actually the second building to use the name "Charlotte Coliseum";

, located on Independence Boulevard, originally opened as the Coliseum. The older Coliseum is still in use. Later the Charlotte Coliseum was replaced with the now

Spectrum Center Spectrum Center is an indoor arena located in Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. It is owned by the city of Charlotte and operated by its main tenant, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The arena seats 19,077 for ...

located in the First Ward of

Uptown Uptown may refer to: Neighborhoods or regions in several cities United States * Uptown, entertainment district east of Downtown and Midtown Albuquerque, New Mexico * Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina * Uptown, area surrounding the University of C ...

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

Tenants

Although the Hornets were the best-known tenants of the Coliseum, many other teams called The Hive home. The

Charlotte Sting The Charlotte Sting were a Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) team based in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the league's eight original teams. The team folded on January 3, 2007. The Sting was originally the sister organization of ...

of the WNBA began play in the Coliseum upon their inception in 1997, but had moved to

in 2006. During most Sting games, the upper level and a portion of the lower level were curtained off, reducing capacity to around 10,000. However, during the Sting's unexpected run to the WNBA Finals in 2001, they attracted the largest crowd in WNBA history to one playoff game. The

Charlotte 49ers The Charlotte 49ers are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina. The 49ers compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level ...

played in the Coliseum during their final days in the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams partici ...

from 1988 through 1993. The Coliseum also played host to the 1989 Sun Belt men's basketball tournament, setting a record for attendance. They moved back to their old home, Bojangles' Coliseum (then known as Independence Arena) for the 1993–94 season, partly due to a desire for a more intimate atmosphere. The 49ers rarely came close to filling the arena, and they were frequently swallowed up in the environment. Additionally, the Coliseum was located on the opposite side of the county from UNC Charlotte's campus, and was thus inconvenient to most of its student body. Two now-defunct

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

teams played in the Coliseum—the

Charlotte Rage The Charlotte Rage were a professional arena football team based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. They were members of the Arena Football League from 1992 to 1996. They played their home games at the Charlotte Coliseum from 1992 to 1994 and th ...

(1992–96) and the

Carolina Cobras The Carolina Cobras were an expansion franchise in the Arena Football League. The team was formed prior to the 2000 season, which endured a player strike. The team was originally based in Raleigh, North Carolina, but moved to Charlotte followin ...

(2003–04). When the NBA returned to Charlotte in 2004 with the expansion

Bobcats The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IU ...

, they played their first season ( 2004–05) in the Coliseum as what became the

was being built. Although the Coliseum and all but one of its parking lots had been demolished as of September 2013, the street leading to the grounds named Hive Drive (after the Coliseum's nickname of "The Hive", which has since been applied to the second Hornets' home arena) and a sign at the beginning guiding drivers to the Coliseum and surrounding amenities remained for some time afterward. Additionally, for some years after the arena's demolition, signs on Billy Graham Parkway continued to direct drivers to the "Coliseum Area."

Notable events

The arena was also used for college basketball events. The Coliseum hosted the 1994 Men's Final Four and the 1996 Women's Final Four (both jointly hosted by

Davidson College Davidson College is a private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina. It was established in 1837 by the Concord Presbytery and named after Revolutionary War general William Lee Davidson, who was killed at the nearby Battle of Cowan� ...

and

UNC Charlotte The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte or simply Charlotte) is a public research university in Charlotte, North Carolina. UNC Charlotte offers 24 doctoral, 66 master's, and 79 bachelor's degree programs through nine colle ...

), in addition to NCAA tournament regionals, sub-regionals, eight ACC men's basketball tournaments and the 1989

men's basketball tournament. It also hosted the

1991 NBA All-Star Game The 1991 NBA All-Star Game was an exhibition basketball game between players selected from the National Basketball Association's Western Conference and the Eastern Conference that was played on February 10, 1991, at the Charlotte Coliseum in Ch ...

. It was also the site of

WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and var ...

Unforgiven 1999 and Judgment Day 2003. In addition to the many sporting events hosted at the Coliseum, it hosted large concerts. The first concert was not long after the grand opening and featured Frank Sinatra. Another blue eyed-crooner, Rick "The Big Bopper" Sammons, was the final performer to entertain in the coliseum.

In film

The Coliseum was home to filming of the movie '' Eddie'' in 1996, and was the Tech Dome, home of the fictitious Tech University in the 1998 film ''

He Got Game ''He Got Game'' is a 1998 American sports drama film written, produced and directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington and Ray Allen. The film revolves around Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington), father of the top-ranked basketball pro ...

.'' It was also featured in 2002's ''

Juwanna Mann ''Juwanna Mann'' is a 2002 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Jesse Vaughan, written by Bradley Allenstein, produced by Bill Gerber, and starring Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Vivica A. Fox, Kevin Pollak, Tommy Davidson, Kim Wayans, Gi ...

''.

Current use

City Park, a mixed-use development, was constructed on the former site. City Park includes town homes, apartments, hotels, and restaurants. A plaque honoring the former arena is placed near the front of the development.

Notes

External links

Charlotte Coliseum implosion footage
{{Authority control 1988 establishments in North Carolina 2005 disestablishments in North Carolina Arena football venues Charlotte 49ers basketball venues Charlotte Hornets venues Charlotte Hornets Charlotte Sting venues Defunct indoor arenas in the United States Former National Basketball Association venues Demolished sports venues in North Carolina Event venues established in 1988 Former music venues in the United States Sports venues demolished in 2007 Defunct sports venues in North Carolina Music venues in North Carolina Sports venues completed in 1988 Indoor arenas in North Carolina NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament Final Four venues Buildings and structures demolished by controlled implosion