The Amway Arena has played host to the NBA basketball team the Orlando Magic since 1989. This impressive streak, however, is about to come to an end. As of next year, the Orlando Magic will have a new home.

Starting in 2010, this NBA basketball team will begin playing in the brand new Amway Center. The plans for the construction of this arena were part of a $1.1-billion improvement package that also contained plans for making improvements to the Citrus Bowl and building a brand new performing arts center. Of the impressive amount mentioned, $480 million of that was set aside for the construction of a new arena.

Though there may be sentimental value attached to the current arena, it was past time for a change. There have been discussions to completely refurbish or demolish the TD Waterhouse Center since as early as 1999. The current home of the Orland Magic ranks near the bottom in the list of NBA arenas as far as overall capacity and luxury. After 7 years of discussions, an agreement was reached; a final approval was given in July of 2007, and ground was broken for the new arena in 2008.

Many fans are excited about the opening of the new arena in the not-too-distant future. This new sports and entertainment venue will contain flexible seating arrangements which can be altered to hold more or fewer spectators, depending upon the event. For NBA games, the Amway Center will be set to hold up to 18,600 fans.

Not only will this new venue be set up with seats for fans, but it will also house 60 private suites, 4 bunker suites, 4 party suites, and 2 super suites. These suites will be spread out across two levels, and contain a total of 1,400 club seats and 68 loge seats. Plenty of seats means plenty of Orlando Magic tickets will be available for fans to purchase at StubPass.com.

View the Full Orlando Magic Schedule

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 12:08 pm and is filed under NBA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.