Renderings released for $1.3 billion Bank of America Stadium renovations

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – One of the crown jewels of Charlotte is getting a billion dollar face lift. Tepper Sports and Entertainment released new renderings for the Bank of America Stadium renovation project.

“It’s a huge opportunity for the community in reference to travel and tourism and sports entertainment of the economic impact of having the Panthers in town,” Malcolm Graham, District 2, Charlotte City Council said.

The renderings show a new social patio with a skyline view, new scoreboards, renovated locker rooms and offices. There’s also a new 4,400 seat entertainment venue planned for outside the stadium that will host at least 80 events a year.

“It impacts workers, Uber drivers, servers, bartenders, hotel owners, event planners, and so I’m really excited about the renderings and how the facility will look, but more excited about the $500 million more going into the face lift of the facility itself,” Councilman Graham said.

The City of Charlotte is investing 650 million dollars from its hospitality and tourism fund toward the $1.3 billion dollar renovations, billionaire owner David Tepper will foot the rest of the bill.

“That’s not really going to Mr. Tepper. It’s going to the workers, the construction workers that will help bill and reclassify the building in terms of renovating it,” Councilman Graham said.

There was some criticism about taxpayers footing more than half the bill for the stadium, but Councilman Graham says there will be a return on the investment with more than $4 billion in economic impact every year.

Malcolm Graham, District 2, Charlotte City Council, “there’s a wide variety of ways that the team and the company itself supports the community and their wide variety of community benefits that are attached to it.”

Bank of America stadium will keep hosting Panthers and Charlotte FC games while crews work on the renovations which are expected to be complete by 2030.

The team and Bank of America also announced a long-term extension of the company’s naming rights for the stadium, but the details of that deal have not been made public yet.