A nine-figure renovation of the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles will bring new rooms, fan experience upgrades at all levels

The new City View Terrace will take advantage of Crypto.com Arena’s location in downtown LA.Courtesy of AEG / Crypto.com Arena

Architect duo Dan Meis and Ron Turner designed the Crypto.com Arena in the late 1990s, and 23 years after opening the Los Angeles venue, the pair are shepherding the design of its biggest renovation to date.

The three-phase project began this summer and will recreate nearly every aspect of the AEG-owned arena, the entrance and the surrounding Xbox Plaza. The biggest challenge so far for Turner and Meis? Remember not to call the place by its original name, “Staples Center.”

“It’s pretty easy now,” Turner said, smiling. “For a couple of weeks, maybe even a month, it was hard to get used to.”

Crypto.com purchased the naming rights in November 2021, beginning a period of massive change over the next few years that will see the home of the Lakers, Kings, Sparks, and currently the Clippers, significantly overhauled. The Clippers, who have called Crypto.com Arena home since it opened, will travel in 2024 to their new multibillion-dollar facility in Inglewood, the Intuit Dome. The new arena will increase competition in an already competitive market. But the impetus for the renovation was changing fan habits and the need for a refresh.

“It’s kind of everything, top to bottom, inside out,” AEG CEO Dan Beckerman said.

The privately funded project will cost AEG nine figures, although the company won’t share a specific price tag, in part because the full parameters of the project haven’t been fleshed out. The first phase will be completed in about two months, with the subsequent phases primarily during the 2023 and 2024 NBA and NHL offseasons. The building, one of the busiest in the world, will not close at any time during the project and capacity will not change significantly.

“After Phase 1 is done, we’ll be able to look at the venue: Is there something we’re going to bring back to the Lakers and Kings from a fan journey, fan experience standpoint that makes the venue more accessible, quicker to get in, quicker to get out of? ” said Lee Zeidman, president of Crypto.com Arena, Microsoft Theater and LA Live. “We’re not afraid to change things right away.”

AEG and the Lakers began discussing this project as early as 2018, when they began negotiations over the Lakers’ 20-year lease extension that ended last year. The renovation was meant to start in 2020; work began as soon as the Kings were eliminated from the NHL playoffs in mid-May.

Meis, whose Meis Studio now operates under the Perkins Eastman banner, and Turner, who heads Gensler’s sports practice, split the project nearly 50-50. The original Staples Center contractor, PCL Construction, is once again leading the construction effort. AEG Eiendomsutvikling collaborated with the project group on design and coordination.

An overall goal of the renovation is to create more common gathering spaces, whether for premium or general admission fans.

“The idea of ​​making the courts and club levels more of an area to hang out, you don’t want to be locked in your box and you want to get out before and after the game and at halftime and see who else is at the game,” Meis said.

The tunnel club, which will eventually be two levels between the Lakers and Kings locker rooms, will be completed once the Clippers move out.Courtesy of AEG / Crypto.com Arena

Crypto.com Arena’s premium spaces will receive significant attention, including an increase in the variety of premium products. Two new offerings will be created, including a quartet of suites accessible from the main hall. The arena will add eight new suites for a total of 178.

The Chairman’s Club, often used by the arena’s celebrity guests, has doubled in size and will be ready for the Lakers’ and Kings’ season openers later this year. By the end of the project in 2024, a two-story tunnel clubhouse, the lower level of which will fill the vacated Clippers locker room, will bring fans closer to players and coaches as they enter and exit the Lakers and Kings locker rooms to take to the court or ice. The upper half will be built in 2023, and the lower half will come the following year.

All three clubs – the San Manuel Club, the Lexus Club and the Clippers Club – will be renovated, with the option to convert to one, two or three clubs a key aspect of the new layout.

Beckerman said increasing unique experiences for all fans in the building — not just high-dollar guests — was a key intention. A symbol of that idea, the City View Terrace, located off the upper concourse, will be enhanced into a rooftop bar that opens into the bowl, creating an indoor-outdoor hybrid experience.

“When you stand on that deck and look at the LA skyline, it’s just magical,” Meis said. “There are very few arenas that are connected to a city, an iconic city. The upper deck club is going to be the biggest difference.”

The arena holds its annual Grammy Party on the City View Terrace, but LA Live didn’t exist when the arena was first built, and downtown LA has grown tremendously over the past two decades.

“I think we’re finally going to reach the full potential of what a focal point City View Terrace can be,” Beckerman said.

New main hall suites will give the renovated arena a unique feature that suits the team’s “showtime” crowd of celebrities.Courtesy of AEG / Crypto.com Arena

Apparently every corner of the arena and the wider development will be affected by the renovation.

Fields will be redone, new LED screens added, security upgraded across campus, two grab-and-go markets deployed, home and away team locker rooms replaced, roof replaced and more mundane details updated, such as new lights, floors, ceilings — fundamentals that will collectively modernize the 23-year-old building. Outside, Xbox Plaza – the area between the Microsoft Theater and the arena – will be expanded, with Chick Hearn Court, the road that bisects the LA Live development, permanently blocked off and filled in.

And the visual transformation to Crypto.com Arena signage will be completed before the upcoming NBA and NHL seasons begin.

When asked if AEG was considering just building a new arena, Zeidman laughed. “No,” he said.

The venue, which hosts approximately 240 events and 4 million people annually, remains in a prime location and the skeletal system is in solid shape. Annual investments by AEG over the past two decades will ultimately save money on this renovation.

“We love our history and we’re proud of it, and we all have wonderful memories of the first 20 years,” Beckerman said. “But this was about looking forward and reimagining the fan experience. That was really our north star.”