{"id":295,"date":"2023-12-01T21:43:01","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T21:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/?p=295"},"modified":"2025-08-04T01:36:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T01:36:43","slug":"news-conference-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/news-conference-2\/","title":{"rendered":"$34 million Classic Center Arena expansion plans to bring a variety of entertainment to Downtown Athens"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz speaks on the plans for the new Classic Center Arena. Girtz was elected mayor of Athens in 2018.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

(Photo\/Gray Barbee)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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On Friday Morning, Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz held a conference regarding the ongoing construction of the new Classic Center Arena in the Fine Arts building on UGA\u2019s North Campus. The $34 million project will increase the arena\u2019s maximum capacity to 8,500 people.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWe first created a pretty large addition about 10 years ago\u2026 And that\u2019s allowed for gatherings of 3,500 or 4,000 people. But the Classic Center Authority working with the commission and myself realized we may need to take it to the next level,\u201d said Girtz.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The arena\u2019s location will provide many new benefits to downtown Athens businesses as it projects to draw 50 million dollars of annual economic impact to the city. The arena will also offer an array of community benefits as it will create more than 600 jobs. The project will bring a plethora of new entertainment to Athens as the expansion will accommodate everything from family-friendly shows such as \u201cDisney on Ice\u201d to UGA\u2019s Ice Dawgs, as well as a professional hockey team that has not been named yet.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The UGA Ice Dawgs<\/a> were established in 1987 and play their home games in the Classic Center. The Classic Center\u2019s expansion project plans to accommodate both the Ice Dawgs and the unnamed professional team by featuring a main arena and another hall with hosting capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI think the Ice Dawgs may sometimes spend their time in the arena and may sometimes spend their time in the hall. So we\u2019ve got the opportunity to move between the two. But I have every confidence that we can manage that question,\u201d said Girtz<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The expansion project won\u2019t just stand to benefit attendees in the crowd. The Classic Center Arena plans to serve as a full-time practice facility for the Ice Dawgs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThe most thing I’m excited for is not having to drive to Duluth every week for practice,\u201d said Ice Dawgs Senior Forward Josh Mesaros. \u201cMost teams have to go off campus to play but it being downtown is gonna be so nice and so convenient.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The new Classic Center Arena is currently slated to open Aug 1, 2024 but another delay is possible.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cLet me say (I\u2019m) reasonably confident. Reality is in any large construction project there are ripples and hiccups. And so if it is not Aug 1, I expect it to be shortly thereafter,\u201d said Girtz.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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https:\/\/twitter.com\/barbeegray02\/status\/1730596410557399324<\/div>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Why I Wrote the Story:<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I wrote this story for my reporting I class in UGA’s Journalism program. I covered local business this semester for the class and our final project was to cover a news conference with Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz. I learned that there is much ongoing action behind the scenes of local businesses and government that can be more exciting to cover than I initially thought.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz speaks on the plans for the new Classic Center Arena. Girtz was elected mayor of Athens in 2018. (Photo\/Gray Barbee) On Friday Morning, Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz held a conference regarding the ongoing construction of the new Classic Center Arena in the Fine Arts building on UGA\u2019s North Campus. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,44,45,11,4],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-athens-clarke-county","tag-classic-center","tag-josh-mesaros","tag-kelly-girtz","tag-uga"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4432"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-graybarbee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}