Report: Bobcats ask for more than $40 million for arena renovations

Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte opened in 2005. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

The Bobcats and city tourism officials submitted a list of improvements for Time Warner Cable Arena that would cost the city of Charlotte $41.9 million, according to Steve Harrison of The Charlotte Observer.

Writes Harrison, "The request includes suite improvements, restaurant renovations and moving the ticket office at the 8 1/2-year-old facility."

The arena is the third-youngest in the NBA, older than only Brooklyn's Barclays Center and the Amway Center in Orlando.

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The Bobcats rank 25th in the NBA with an average home attendance of 15,257.

Charlotte City Council voted to give $87.5 million for stadium improvements to the Panthers' Bank of America Stadium, which opened in 1996, last year.

Writes Harrison, "When the city and Bobcats signed a 25-year arena lease, one provision called for the Bobcats and the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which together manage the city-owned facility, to conduct a review of the $260 million arena’s needs seven years after its opening."

Charlotte voters rejected a proposal to use public money on a new basketball arena in 2001, and in 2002 the Hornets left for New Orleans.

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