HUTCHINSON, Kan. — It certainly will gather a lot of discussion in the coming weeks, that’s the improvements to the Hutchinson Sports Arena and the more than $29 million it will take to renovate it.
The future of the 62-year-old building and the NJCAA basketball tournament are one step closer to being in the hands of the 
voting public as the council was in consensus that the arena should undergo a full renovation, and that it be done as one project.
The Council got a firsthand look at the arena plans, which calls for a new entryway on the south side of the building, complete with new offices, concession stands, restrooms, media and hospitality facilities—all things wanted by the NJCAA and others. The north end would have two practice gyms, a weight room, and training facilities that could be enjoyed by the public, and make the building more user friendly year round. The rest of the building would undergo a complete renovation, making it ADA compliant, along with new plumbing, heating, air conditioning and more space. Most of the discussion centered on the ability to convince the public that this needed to be done all at once with the Council questioning the validity of a project of this scope.
One of the arena committee members, Ron Sellers, stated that the arena needed to be done and not put off for years at a time, stating that he didn’t want another Memorial Hall type situation in the city. Fellow committee member Alan Fee echoed those statements, stating that it is an all-in-one proposal. If it doesn’t pass it won’t matter, the NJCAA tournament will be gone, and the building will still need repairs. While the tournament isn’t at the center of the project, most admit that it is still an important part of the arena and important to the city. Still the main focus for the improvements is having an arena that will serve the public year round.
In the end, the Council voted to begin the process of bringing a tax referendum up for a vote in the spring election. Engineers for the project say that if approved, work on the arena could begin in the winter of 2016 and be finished by March of 2017.