Rapides Coliseum Eyes Upgrades

Officials in Alexandria, La., are weighing options to renovate the city’s 50-year-old Rapides Parish Coliseum following the approval of a $23 million bond issue that will go to voters in November.

City leaders and the Coliseum Authority that oversees the venue recently heard from two architectural firms with big plans for the 7,800-capacity arena.

Updates could include 1,500 new seats and skyboxes, adding a larger stage and new sound, lighting and electrical systems, new dressing rooms, a revamped parking area with new spaces and a new exterior, the local Town Talk reported.

“It’s got good bones,” architect Jay Lynch of Barron Heinberg & Brocato told the paper. “We feel confident we can add to it and use that existing structure to spring forward into this expansion.”

A coliseum study committee was scheduled to meet to decide on a plan to recommend to the city’s Police Jury at press time.