North Charleston officials are moving forward on plans to modernize the city's three-decade-old Coliseum complex, but anyone hoping for a construction date or final budget will have to keep waiting. The city has hired a firm with experience at SoFi Stadium and closed bidding on an engineering partner, yet the scope and cost of the actual renovations remain undetermined.
A New Advisor Steps In
As reported by the Post and Courier, North Charleston issued a contract in August to Legends Global to help guide the planning, design and implementation of renovations across the Coliseum, the Performing Arts Center and the Charleston Area Convention Center. The three venues together make up the city-owned Bourne-Summey City Center complex, which hosts around 800 events annually. Legends Global already manages day-to-day operations at the complex and has worked with high-profile venues including SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles and T-Mobile Stadium in Kansas City.
The city council has already put a dollar figure on one piece of that arrangement. According to citizenportal.ai, council authorized a $180,125 agreement to hire Legends Global for predevelopment advisory services tied to the renovation of all three venues. That figure covers advisory work rather than the renovations themselves, and officials have not attached a price tag to the broader project.
Engineering Firm Selection Underway
North Charleston closed the bidding process for an architect and engineering firm on November 5, per the Post and Courier's reporting. Whichever firm is selected will evaluate the cost of each proposed upgrade and create a list of priorities for the city to consider. That work builds on a study North Charleston officials initiated in 2025 to evaluate future venue upgrades, which looked at visitor experience, amenities, food-and-beverage operations and back-of-house functions across all three buildings.
An evaluation committee made up of city staff, council members, and Coliseum and Performing Arts Center officials will review the eventual proposals, establish the project's scope and overall design direction, and recommend a plan to city council for final approval. City spokesman Tony Tassarotti told the Post and Courier the goal is straightforward: the improvements aim to modernize and future-proof the venues for years to come. North Charleston will determine which projects it can actually fund once it has reviewed those priorities, since the venue projects carry no attached price tag at this stage.
Three Decades of History on the Line
The Coliseum opened in 1993 with 13,000 seats, while the Performing Arts Center, with 2,300 seats, and the 77,000-square-foot Convention Center both opened in 1999. Over the years the arena has hosted acts including Elton John, Prince, Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen. Billy Joel played the Coliseum's first concert in 1994 in front of an audience of 12,697 people, and construction of the building itself was photographed back on March 6, 1992.
This isn't the first time the city has weighed major changes to the complex. A proposal reported years earlier by postandcourier.com estimated that an arena upgrade could run about $18 million to $19 million, with concession stands combined into two easy-access food courts on opposite sides of the building. The evidence does not establish whether that older proposal is connected to the current modernization effort.
Other Recent Projects at the Site
Separately, North Charleston's city council approved a $3,548,992.44 contract for Coliseum resurfacing on June 25, 2026, according to citizenportal.ai's earlier coverage. It isn't clear from available reporting whether that resurfacing work is part of the broader modernization push or a standalone project. The Coliseum complex has seen other improvements over the years as well — Thomas & Hutton's portfolio describes earlier site work that added a new ticketing building, accessible routes and landscape planters, along with an enlarged loading dock, new customer drop-off zones and reconfigured parking areas.
The site has also seen major infrastructure investment before. A 2,200-space parking garage was in development for the complex around 2018-19, a project that postandcourier.com reported was expected to take about 18 to 24 months to complete. For now, the current modernization effort remains in its early planning phase, with North Charleston officials waiting on the architect and engineering firm's cost evaluations before any scope or budget is finalized.
