‘Spectacular’ arena between Atlanta and Savannah is part of city’s $1B ‘flex’
MACON — Officials here on Wednesday unveiled renderings of a 10,000-plus-capacity, red-brick arena to be built along I-16 that will, at an estimated $350 million, be the priciest and largest public undertaking of its kind in Middle Georgia’s history.
The for-now-dubbed Macon Arena, with its oval, overhanging rooftop that is symbolic of a vinyl record, an homage to the city’s rich musical heritage, will replace the nearly 60-year-old Macon Coliseum that, until it is razed in a couple of years, sits next door on a high-visibility hillside across the Ocmulgee River from downtown.
The new four-tiered, 230,000-plus-square-foot venue in the city that has been home to Otis Redding, Little Richard and the Allman Brothers is slated to open in summer 2028. The Macon-Bibb County Commission authorized the Urban Development Authority to issue taxable revenue bonds to finance the project.
In addition to being a future venue for concerts and high school graduations, it will be the new home of minor league hockey’s Macon Mayhem and host to Georgia High School Association state basketball championship tournaments, which have long been held at the Coliseum.
It will have room for two ice rinks, one of them under the floor of an auxiliary space that can house a trio of basketball or volleyball courts.
“It’s like a billboard” for the city, said Gary Wheat, CEO of Visit Macon, which promotes tourism.
The new arena will be the focal point of more than $1 billion in public and private development in a roughly square-mile area straddling I-16. Those projects include the $80-plus-million Mercer University medical school complex on the downtown side of the river along with plans for new hotels, a convention center and other structures in the works. The $1 billion figure does not include the Georgia Department of Transportation’s $500 million overhaul of the I-75 interchange at I-16, which will improve access to the new arena.
In front of a crowd at Wednesday’s unveiling of the new arena’s renderings inside downtown’s Douglass Theatre, Macon Mayor Lester Miller, a lawyer by trade and a showman at heart who is ever a cheerleader for his hometown, boasted that other cities in the state “want to be Macon.”
He quipped good-naturedly of recent trips around Georgia to arenas of similar scope. He told of visiting Augusta to see that city’s under-construction arena project: “It’s gonna be OK.” He mentioned touring Enmarket Arena, an entertainment venue in Savannah that opened four years ago: “It’s all right. ... Doesn’t have much character, doesn’t look that pretty, but it’s functional.” He spoke of Athens’ Classic Center: “Nice, good arena, but you’ve got no parking. Zero. Can’t get in and out very well.”
Then, referring to images of his city’s in-the-works arena, he declared it “something spectacular.”
“We’re gonna flex. We’re gonna show people that Macon-Bibb County is the place to go,” Miller said. “We’re gonna show them that you don’t have to drive to Savannah, to Columbus, Augusta, Atlanta, to enjoy the nice things. On day one, this thing’s gonna pop.”
The new arena also will have a pair of parking garages and a vast tract of a parking lot, more than the Coliseum now has and with two entrances and exits compared to a single one now that created postgame or post-show traffic jams.
Miller said that remaining stagnant would allow other cities to step in and “take every event that we ever had. Not that they hate us, but they love their communities.”
The mayor also recently championed a $45 million, 12,000-capacity amphitheater built in the parking lot of a foundering shopping mall. That open-air venue, part of a push to revitalize Macon’s southwest side, opened in March 2024 with concerts by Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top.
Last year the 15,000-square foot, $11 million Otis Redding Center for the Arts opened in downtown, aiming to nurture the next generations of musicians here. The center is about 100 yards from the 2,700-seat, recently renovated Macon City Auditorium that was built in 1925.
Miller said the Macon Coliseum had “seen its better days” and reasoned that despite its storied past it was time for this city of 156,000 to also up its arena game.
The venerable Coliseum opened Oct. 15, 1968, and cost $5 million to build. The first performance it hosted was the touring figure skating show “Holiday on Ice.”
At its dedication that night, Georgia Gov. Carl Sanders hailed the near-10,000-person-capacity structure’s completion and lauded “the emergence of Macon as a vigorous, modern, moving city.”
It staged its first concert 11 days afterward. The star? James Brown. A week later came the Beach Boys.
And in an era when chart-topping groups toured in midsize towns, the Coliseum was a magnet for them. Despite being the region’s go-to venue for staging those big-name concerts — Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Elton John, Aerosmith, Hank Williams Jr., Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers — the Coliseum was, from the outset, plagued by sound problems. On opening night, its P.A. system went on the fritz.
Down the decades, officials tried repeatedly with little success to fine-tune its sound-eating roof and its cavernous interior that spoiled many a musical act. In January 1983, a reviewer of a George Jones concert cracked in the Macon Telegraph the next day that Jones’ “resonant baritone fought the coliseum’s lousy acoustics to a draw.”
Throughout the 1970s and well into the 1980s, the coliseum was a frequent stop, often on a weekly basis, on the big time professional wrestling circuit. Andre the Giant, Harley Race, Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes were regulars.
The short-lived but famously named Macon Whoopee semi-pro ice hockey team played there. On occasion, the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks staged preseason games in it.
Speaking of that bygone era and the outdated Coliseum, Miller told those gathered Wednesday, “The good thing about memories is they’re gonna be with you forever. These buildings ... can’t be.”
