Holt Arena construction nearing completion

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) - We are just two months away from the Idaho State football team kicking off their 2023 season in Holt Arena, and this year home games will look a little different.

Holt Arena has been undergoing major renovations since the conclusion of last season.

In 2022, the renovations included a brand new turf field, luxury seating and the installation of new seats on the north side of the field.

In 2023, many of the changes are on the infrastructure of the building.

"The visqueen on the ceiling that covers up the old brown insulation that caused a lot of damage fell from the ceiling will all be covered up," said ISU Athletic Director Pauline Thiros. "We also have a new exterior on the roof, new exterior panels outside and some translucent glass that lets a lot of light into the arena."

New seats have also been installed on the south side of the building.

"The seats were 50 years old and had never been changed out," Thiros said. "They were breaking at a high rate. There are no longer something that we could replace and esthetically, we just thought we could really brand this building in a much more advantageous way."

The seats are not only new, but they are all ADA accessible.

"A very big item was that the arena wasn't accessible for everybody, so we had a lot of challenges seating people who had challenges getting into spaces or who maybe needed the assistance of a wheelchair," Thiros said. "We just didn't have adequate space for that part of our fan base."

Thiros says making the venue more esthetically pleasing will help in both growing the fanbase and in recruiting with other schools in the Big Sky Conference.

"It helps to begin catching us up to the facilities that are available to our peers in the league," Thiros said.

And on the field, the football team will look a little different with new head coach Cody Hawkins hired back in December.

"Coach Hawkins has just been a resounding success thus far with the kids," Thiros said. 'He's bringing a whole different culture to the program. There's a great deal of optimism around the offense and the program that he is going to run. It's going to be a very exciting brand of Bengal football to watch in a brand new arena."

Thiros says they have already been hearing positive responses from the community and alumni that can't wait to watch a game.

"We're seeing a little bit of a boost in ticket sales and we're ready to fill this place and give us a great home field advantage and get started with a new season," Thiros said.

After opening up their season on the road against San Diego State and Utah State, the Bengals will host Northern Iowa at 4 p.m. on Sept. 16.