MSG renovation going as planned
An aerial view of the renovations taking place at Madison Square Garden. (July 20, 2011)
With about 1,000 construction workers in the building 24 hours a day, Madison Square Garden's renovation is right on schedule.
The arena is in the midst of the first of three summers of a nearly $1-billion transformation. Just three months into the round-the-clock work that began once the Rangers and Knicks were eliminated from the playoffs in April, thousands of new seats already have been installed in the lower bowl.
"We're right where we hoped to be," said Garden CEO Hank Ratner, who hosted a handful of reporters on a tour of the ongoing construction Thursday. "The scope of the work is moving along nicely."
By the time the arena reopens in late October, fans will be aware of changes that already have been completed. They include: An expanded Madison (sixth floor) concourse with city views, better concession stands and more restrooms; 20 new event-level suites, all of which either are under contract or about to be, according to Ratner; a Delta Sky360 Club at event level, with views of players exiting and entering the arena from brand-new locker rooms; more open eighth- and 10th-floor concourses with new concessions and direct views into the arena.
Once the transformation is complete in the fall of 2013, the entire Garden will have changed. And Garden executives revealed one historical touch Thursday: Roughly one thousand upper-bowl seats will revert to their original blue color, immortalized by Rangers fans throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
The upper bowl will be finished in time for the 2012-13 season, and the final touches -- a completely renovated Seventh Avenue lobby, a new fan deck on the 10th floor and a state-of-the-art GardenVision scoreboard -- will be the last summer's work.
If the next two summers go as smoothly as this one, Garden executives will be pleased. Said Ratner: "We're essentially condensing 12 months of work into four months with the 24-hour work."
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