Legacy Arena marks 40th birthday as BJCC looks to the future
The Legacy Arena at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex is celebrating its 40th birthday, giving local residents of a certain age the chance to wax nostalgic about the long-ago opening of a building that, for the first time, gave the Magic City a large, world-class events venue.
Legacy – originally called the BJCC Coliseum – opened on Sept. 28, 1976, with a concert by pop star John Denver.
In the decades since, the arena – which can accommodate almost 19,000 people – has hosted college basketball tournaments, musical icons as diverse as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Pink, and a wide variety of other events, including boxing, circuses and even auto racing.
The anniversary is “a great time to take a few minutes and reflect on what this building has meant to this community for 40 years,” said BJCC Executive Director Tad Snider, who met members of the media at the arena last Thursday.
“I can’t imagine anybody in this area who doesn’t have a memory of being in this building for something, and we hope a good memory,” Snider said.
In fact, Legacy is a veritable “memory maker,” said Cindy Crawford, the BJCC’s director of communications
And Snider believes that the arena is about the future as much as the past, given the recent completion of a master plan update that calls for substantial improvements to the arena and the entire BJCC, as well as the addition of a much-discussed open-air stadium for UAB football and other sports.
“It’s very early,” Snider said regarding the planning process. “We have a lot of work left to do, but we are looking at how to make this viable for the next 20 years.”
Snider is one of the Birmingham natives who has an emotional bond to Legacy. “I have fond memories of growing up attending Birmingham Bulls hockey, UAB Blazers basketball, all kinds of concerts in this building,” he said.
He estimates that Legacy has hosted over 1,600 events and drawn about 12 million people over the last 40 years.
The proposed master plan update, developed by Kansas City firm Populous, was presented to the BJCC board in August. Legacy would get an updated façade, new entrances, a new suite level, improved concourses and enhanced food and beverage options. The piazza outside of the arena would also be renovated
“It really is a top-down, soup-to-nuts overhaul of the building,” Snider said. “You start with its basic bones, which are sound and good, but then you just redo everything else – consistent with what arenas being opened in other markets today have.”
Snider said that the building has been very significant in the city’s recent history.
“Just think about what Birmingham would have been like the last 40 years without a building like this,” he said, citing such factors as quality of life and economic impact. “It’s just a fantastic community amenity that we’re glad is here.”