THUNDER ROLL: The Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray drives against the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at Paycom Center last season. A new NBA arena will replace the 22-year-old facility in 2028. (Getty Images)
Manica/TVS approved as design team
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s new arena will feature all the bells and whistles that were missing when the team’s existing venue opened 22 years ago without a big league tenant, says David Manica, lead design architect for the $900 million project.
This week, Manica Architecture, teaming with architect of record TVS, were approved by Oklahoma City officials to design the new arena.
It will replace Paycom Center, built in 2002, and which had the smallest footprint in the NBA with 586,000 square feet after the Thunder relocated from Vancouver, British Columbia in 2008. Multiple renovations were made over the past two decades to accommodate the Thunder, but the team and the city finally determined it would be cost prohibitive to make further upgrades.
As group, they determined it’s better to build a new home for the city’s only big league team with the modern touches displayed by the newest NBA arenas in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Milwaukee.
In OKC, it’s too early to determine the new arena’s design theme, but Manica said early indications are that the building will be optimized for concerts as much as basketball, which will largely dictate the building’s layout. In that respect, it falls in line with the trend of new arenas and stadiums that have opened over the past decade.
“We’re talking about words like togetherness and community,” he said. “They want it to have a wow aspect, all those kinds of things that are important to the city. We’ll be respectful of local materials. We’re not sure what kind of symbolism will be incorporated into it yet, but the building will be telling a story that’s unique to the city and this place.”
ASM Global runs Paycom Center and has been consulting on the new arena project with the Thunder, the design team and CAA Icon, the city’s owner’s representative. Special events apart from basketball are a focus, said Paycom Center’s general manager Chris Semrau, who’s been involved in initial discussions about arena development. To this point, ASM Global has not been selected to run the new arena, Semrau said.
“We’re working with touring professionals to provide great production options, backstage amenities and strategically creating seating configurations to help them achieve their financial objectives,” Semrau said. “The ease of doing business in this facility will set this venue apart.”
The site sits one block north of Paycom Center and the Bricktown Entertainment District, which is currently occupied by the city’s former convention center, which contains the old Myriad arena. The structure will be torn down to clear space for new construction.
As it stands now, Manica and TVS are in the midst of starting the programming phase, followed by concept design in mid to late November, to be completed in March, flowing into schematic design.
Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for late 2025, with the intention to open in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics. Oklahoma City was selected as a satellite site for Olympic women’s softball competition and whitewater rafting events, and city officials anticipate using the new arena for hospitality supporting the Olympic Games.
The new arena will have connections to the entertainment district and additional development planned to the south of the site, Manica said.
All told, the 13-acre plot for the new arena is a “generous site with enough area for outdoor plazas and gathering spaces, with gardens,” he said. “It’s a little bigger than the Chase Center site, where we had to be careful with every square inch there because they had other buildings next to the arena. We have some breathing room to do something special in Oklahoma City.”
Chase Center was among the Manica-designed projects the Thunder studied as part of their due diligence before selecting Manica Architecture. The NBA team also talked with the Tennessee Titans and Las Vegas Raiders, two NFL teams tied to Manica stadium projects. Manica and TVS teamed together to plan New Nissan Stadium in Nashville, targeted to open in 2027.
“It’s going to be in a part of downtown Oklahoma City that’s growing and the new arena will be catalyst for it,” Manica said. “The city and its people deserve something great and they’re going to get it.”
