This is what Holt Arena’s North Side will look like after renovations are complete. The translucent windows will be added next year.

This is what Holt Arena’s North Side will look like after renovations are complete. The translucent windows will be added next year.

On the corner of Memorial Drive and Stacy Dragila Way, there is a large, illuminated sign proclaiming, “Holt Arena, Home of the Bengals.” Attached to the base of the sign is a plaque that reads, “Milton ‘Dubby’ Holt. An athlete, coach and administrator at Idaho State University for 34 years, Dubby is synonymous with ISU athletics. In 1970, his dream of the first domed football stadium on a college campus was born, forever changing the face of ISU and Pocatello.”

It is entirely appropriate that in the same year that Holt was posthumously inducted into the Big Sky Conference Hall of Fame, his legacy is finally getting the tender, loving care it deserves, some 52 years after its construction. Holt Arena is in the midst of a significant reconstruction, dragging the facility from the 1970s into the 21st century. A few football fields away from Dubby’s plaque, construction workers are busily replacing the antiquated, multi-colored plastic seats that have marked the arena since its construction.

The race is on to get the new seating in place on the North Side of the arena in time for the Sept. 17 home opening football game with Central Arkansas. As soon as the football season ends following the Nov. 1 game with the Idaho Vandals, demolition will begin on the South Side. Work will largely pause during January and February to allow for the ISU indoor track season and the return of the Simplot Games, which have been canceled the last two years because of COVID. Then in March, work will resume on the South Side, with completion of the remodel expected in plenty of time for the kickoff of the 2023 football season.

Despite some hiccups — the new orange seats planned for the middle of the North Side were trapped at a West Coast port last week — Idaho State Athletic Director Pauline Thiros is confident Holt will be ready for the opening kickoff.

“Some things will remain unfinished, like the North Side ticket office, we’ll probably still have to keep leasing space in the Sports Medicine Building,” Thiros said during a recent interview. “But as far as using the building for hosting games and accommodating fans, we’re going to be ready to rock and roll, by all indications.”

The key features of the first phase of the remodel are wider, more comfortable seats, a renovated President’s Box, much better and more ADA-compliant accommodations for patrons with special needs, a new turf, the addition of revenue-producing premium seating and a cleaner, much more professional look to the North Side grandstand.

Next year, ISU will add translucent windows over the top of the North Side grandstand, allowing more light into the arena, they’ll enclose the nasty-looking yellow and brown insulation that fills the ceiling and cover it with “branded” graphics, and replace a roof that has leaked in years past, causing the interruption of basketball games back when the ISU hoops teams utilized the facility.

For taller or heavier patrons who have uncomfortably wiggled into and out of the old Holt Arena seats, probably the biggest attraction of the remodel is the wider seats.

“Every (existing) seat in Holt Arena is 16 inches,” Thiros said. “The (new) plastic seats are all 19 inches. Those seats in the middle section are 20 or 21 inches. These seats are mounted on a bar, so you’ll be able to move the bar back a bit farther in that seating area, and they are more aerodynamic so there will be more leg room in there.”

The North Side will feature premium seating boxes — eight groups of four seats, and two groups of eight seats — which will generate revenue to help pay for the expanded ISU football coaching staff. Patrons are required to donate $1,500 to the Bengal Athletic Boosters, which entitles them to purchase four of the premium seats for $5,000 for the season.

“Everything is sold except for two groups of four remaining, and we’ll get those sold too,” Thiros said.

The President’s Box, where a lot of high-level “schmoozing” takes place on game day, will also get a significant facelift. A food and beverage serving space, large “living room” style seats and televisions will all be part of the ambience for the boosters who are invited to watch the game in style. While the box won’t generate any additional revenue directly, hopefully it will be the place where relationships with donors are created and nurtured.

“We would expect if we’re doing a good job cultivating guests in the President’s Box that we’re building support for the institution as a whole,” Thiros said. “I would say that 90 percent of the people I host in the President’s Box or take on a charter (to away games) say they feel good about their experience, and they almost always invest in the program.”

The remodel will also be a benefit to patrons in wheelchairs or with other special needs. The new ramps will be ADA-compliant and much easier to maneuver, and once both sides of the remodel are complete, there will be significantly more handicapped accommodations. An elevator will be available to provide access to the premium seats on the North Side.

“There will be ADA-accessible seating at every level of seat,” Thiros said.

For the upcoming football season, there will be a bit of a bipolar feeling to the Holt experience. The student section will remain on the South Side, in the older, uncomfortable seats, for example. Thiros said she wanted to keep the students together and in the middle of the arena, rather than splitting them up in the various available sections of the new North Side seats.

“We would have to move them all the way to the ends of the arena (if they were placed on the North Side),” Thiros said. “We put them in the center section, and they like to be all together, they like to be near the band, and they don’t like to be intermixed with the general fans because sometimes the fans complain, ‘You guys are too rowdy.’ We want our students to be rowdy and to have their own space. So, for this year, the location of the student section isn’t going to change.”

One unique feature to the remodel will be the designation of the “Missing Man Chair,” which will be a seat that is spotlighted and always empty as tribute to the service men and women who have lost their lives in service to their country.

The entire remodel is expected to cost about $20 million, including about $8 million for special earth-quake bracing, a requirement revealed during the early planning stages of the remodel. Idaho Central Credit Union is making a significant contribution to cover the cost of the new seating, while the earth-quake bracing is being rolled into a bond.

The new turf will be two-toned, alternating between regular “grass green” and “ICCU green,” in recognition of the credit union’s significant financial contribution to the project. The field will be renamed Idaho Central Credit Union/Caccia Field.

In case you’re curious, the renovation will probably not result in Holt Arena getting back into the concert business. The last major concert Holt hosted was Jason Aldean in 2010, although there have been some smaller shows since. George Casper, the event director for ISU, says Holt doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the large lighting and sound systems that major acts demand these days, and the renovation won’t change that.

The local high schools have also decided to play most of their football games at their school fields, although Casper says Holt is still available to host post-season playoff games, as well as the usual community events like graduation, spring fair, auto shows, etc., although some of those events may have to be delayed during the renovation.

There are probably very few southeastern Idahoans who haven’t had some kind of experience in Holt Arena — originally named the ASISU Minidome — during its more than half century of existence, whether that be an athletic event, a graduation ceremony, an entertainment event or a trade show. It is well past time for Dubby’s dream to get the maintenance attention it deserves.

Brad Bugger has observed athletics in southeastern Idaho for over 40 years as a sportswriter, broadcaster and fan. He can be reached with comments, suggestions and column ideas at bpbugger@gmail.com

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