The Cleveland Cavaliers, as well as owner Dan Gilbert, will be spending an additional $45 million for the extra upgrades at Quicken Loans Arena, which brings the of the Q transformation project’s overall total price to $185 million.
The Cavaliers made the announcement of the injection of money as well as the extra improvements it will be funding on Tuesday. The total contribution made by the Cavaliers will be of at least $115 million by the time the transformation project will expect be complete in October 2019, as the team committed to cover any of the overrun costs from the project. The public funding will continue to stay at the sum $70 million that will be coming in from taxes on the tickets for arena events as well as room charges at the Cuyahoga County hotels.
The additional $45 million will be used for many improvements which the Cavaliers have identified during the construction work. The Cavs wanted to finish off the additional work now itself while the construction work is still going on, as per Len Komoroski, the Cavs CEO and Tad Carper, the spokesman.
A major improvement on will see is a total overhaul of the Cavaliers locker room, which the officials say will be ready before the beginning of the 2018-19 season. The other improvements are expected to be related to additional upgrades for the visual/audio equipment, LED lighting as well as multi-media improvements, said Komoroski.
Carper further said that the project would not be generating $45 million in overrun costs. Instead, the Cavs have decided to invest the extra amount to improve the already-planned upgrades. The initial $140 million transformation plan was being divided between the Cavs and the public on 50:50 split. The public offerings were being committed for re-designing a part of the public areas of the arena and expanding the square footage to include all those improvements.
