Amway Center
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| Former names | Orlando Events Center (planning) |
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| Address | 400 West Church Street |
| Location | Orlando, Florida |
| Coordinates | 28°32′21″N 81°23′1″W / 28.53917°N 81.38361°WCoordinates: 28°32′21″N 81°23′1″W / 28.53917°N 81.38361°W |
| Public transit | SunRail Church Street Station |
| Owner | City of Orlando |
| Operator | Orlando Venues |
| Capacity | 18,846 (NBA) 17,030 (center stage concert) 16,486 (end stage concert) 20,000 (NCAA basketball) 17,192 (arena football) 17,353 (ice hockey) |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | July 25, 2008 |
| Opened | October 1, 2010 |
| Construction cost |
$480 million ($527 million in 2017 dollars) |
| Architect |
Populous C.T. Hsu + Associates Baker Barrios Architects, Inc. |
| Project manager | Turner Construction |
| Structural engineer | Walter P. Moore |
| Services engineer | Smith Seckman Reid, Inc. |
| General contractor | Hunt Construction in association with Rey Group, R.L. Burns, HZ Construction and Albu & Associates |
| Tenants | |
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Orlando Magic (NBA) (2010–present) Orlando Predators (AFL) (2011–2013, 2015–2016) Orlando Solar Bears (ECHL) (2012–present) |
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The Amway Center is a sports and entertainment venue in Orlando, Florida, located in the Downtown area. It is part of Downtown Orlando Master Plan 3: a plan that also involves improvements to the Citrus Bowl and a new performing arts center. The arena is home to the Orlando Magic of the NBA, the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL, and hosted the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, plus the 2015 ECHL All-Star Game.
Amway Center hosted the second and third round games of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament in 2014. On January 14, 2013, the Arena Football League's Board of Directors voted to award ArenaBowl XXVI to Orlando in the summer of 2013. It hosted UFC on Fox: dos Anjos vs. Cerrone 2 on December 19, 2015.
Prior to Downtown Master Plan 3, the Orlando Magic's ownership, led by billionaire Amway founder Richard DeVos and son-in-law Bob Vander Weide, had been pressing the City of Orlando for a new arena for nearly ten years. Amway Arena was built in 1989, prior to the recent era of technologically advanced entertainment arenas. With the rush to build new venues in the NBA (and sports in general), it quickly became one of the oldest arenas in the league.
On September 29, 2006, after years of on-and-off negotiations, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty, and the Orlando Magic announced an agreement on a new arena in downtown Orlando, located at the southwest corner of Church Street and Hughey Avenue. The arena itself cost around $380 million, with an additional $100 million for land and infrastructure, for a total cost of $480 million (as of March 8, 2011 the arena was expected to be within $10 million of the estimated cost). It is part of a $1.05-billion plan to redo the Orlando Centroplex with a new arena, a new $375-million performing arts center, and a $175-million expansion of the Citrus Bowl (Later, declining economic conditions led the improvements to the Citrus Bowl to be delayed until at least 2020). When it was announced in the media on September 29, it was referred to as the "Triple Crown for Downtown".
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