Kitchener Memorial Auditorium Complex - Possible Replacement

Possible Replacement

Kitchener Rangers president Steve Bienkowski has stated that the Rangers have begun the process of researching a new arena. The Rangers have sold out almost every game for the past 3 years, and the waiting list for season tickets has been well over the cap of 4,750. The Rangers would like a building with at least 10,000 seats.

More recently, Bienkowski presented the City of Kitchener council a report on expanding the Aud. The expansion would include another level of seating as well as an expanded concourse. The expansion would add 3,500 seats to the facility to make total seating capacity around 10,500. The estimated cost would be $44 million. This is the favoured route for the team, as a new arena with a larger seating capacity (about 10,000) would cost an estimated $150 million. City council has made it clear they would not finance such a large project unless private companies were adding money to it. Council has been very favourable at the idea of expanding the city owned building. The plan includes raising the roof on the building. This has been done before, with the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium back in the early 1970s.

Bienkowski and the city have come to an agreement, if approved, that would see the auditorium expanded by 1,000 seats. There would also be a concourse on the third level. The expected cost for this expansion would be roughly $9 million, with the Kitchener Rangers Hockey Club paying for it, via a loan from the City of Kitchener. Work began in February 2012 and should be finished November 2012. Seating capacity when finished should be 7,268, about 1,000 more than now, this includes about 920 in regular seats and 80 seats in new suites. That capacity with standing room will be about 7,800. A direct link to the video rendering of what the Auditorium will look like after the renovations can be found here.