New scoreboard at Civic Arena among latest renovations

Zoe Jones, St. Joseph News-Press, Mo.
·2 min read

Feb. 8—New improvements are leading to high hopes for the Civic Arena in Downtown St. Joseph.

Renovations have ranged from fixing the sidewalk outside to adding new seats inside. This week, the old scoreboard was taken down and replaced with a new one.

Jeff Atkins, assistant director of the St. Joseph Parks and Recreation Department, said the new look may be hard for some to get used to.

"Nostalgia is a hard thing to beat sometimes, but when they come and see the capabilities of this new video board, I think they're going to be impressed," Atkins said. "We're competing with these more modern facilities and we were lagging behind. And with the new LED lighting, with the new video capabilities of the scoreboard, the new seating, hopefully, we'll be repainting soon just to give us a brighter, fresher look. Hopefully, we'll start becoming more attractive to the promoters again and we'll have them lining up here wanting to bring shows up to St. Joe."

Other renovations have included the seats and the sidewalk along with new LED lights and lockers.

The work has been needed, but with the Division II Women's Elite Eight right around the corner on March 20 and 22, Brett Esely, director of development with the St. Joseph Sports Commission, said the timing of these projects couldn't be better.

"No question, I think the catalyst for this scoreboard project was the NCAA Division II Women's basketball national championship," Esely said. "As we look at it from a sports commission standpoint, we really look at future events in the building. You know, when I look at what we've got on the calendar, we've got the Missouri State High School Association state volleyball championship coming in a couple of years. The scoreboard was critical to the luring of that event too."

Although the tournament did speed up the process, Esely said he's excited to see what these changes are going to bring.

"You know, the old scoreboard served the building well, it did what it needed to do," Esely said. "But again, to get the building up with the times and to keep up with what we think are the demands of events moving forward. It was critical to make this major change. It is a major change, but it's going to be a dynamic change for the building."