South Dakota State ready to open First Bank & Trust Arena

South Dakota State hosted an open house for the new First Bank & Trust Arena on Friday night.

The newly renovated arena was open to the public for the first time and fans were able to take self-guided tours. SDSU will officially open the building on Thursday night when the Jackrabbit volleyball team hosts Kansas City at 7 p.m.

Construction began on the building that was formerly called Frost Arena in summer 2023. SDSU Director of Athletics Justin Sell said that now that the building renovation is complete it’s more impressive than he thought it was going to be.

“It’s way better. … The vision that we worked with donors and what they supported, they all have high expectations and yet every facility that we’ve done, they walk in and see those expectations [come to life] and they want to reinvest and help continue to make things happen. When they walk into [the arena] it’s going to be the same thing,” Sell said.

Part of the renovation was removing wooden bleachers on the east, south and west side of the arena. Now every seat in the arena has a seat back and the new capacity is 5,000 people. With the removal of the bleachers the new seating is much more vertical and makes it seem like people are right on top of you.

“Old Frost was loud and it felt like people were on top of you,” Sell said. “I underestimated [what the seating would look like] because there’s only so many things you can do in design with a box [shaped building]. You have the walls that define what you can do. When you bring in steel concrete and the whole upper level replaces the pullout bleachers, it pulls everything up and out, closer to the court.

“That blew me away when that stuff came because I couldn’t think of it in those terms. I couldn’t visualize that. You can see it in a drawing and an artistic rendering, but then you come up here and you stand up there or sit up there, could you imagine this place when it’s full? With how steep it is, we got a taste of it last year, but it’s way better and more intimidating than I thought and every coach and student athlete has told me that too.”

The new arena has 12 suites and six loge boxes. The suites are located at the top of the south side of the arena and are split into two different forms with one having three rows of four seats and another having four rows of three seats. Each suite has a table and a mini fridge.

One of the club areas is called the Midco Club and that is located on the south side of the arena. The club includes multiple tables with chairs and TV’s and also includes a bar. SDSU staff has compared it to Club 71 at Dana. J. Dykhouse Stadium. In total there are 200 club seats in the arena.

The student section now takes up the entire west side of the arena. The students will have a club for themselves as well and that is located in the middle of the section with tables, TVs and a view of the court.

Sell said he wanted to make sure everybody had something to look forward to in the new arena.

“You start with that we’re a land-grant school, so there has to be access. You want to keep some prices the same as they were before and you want families to come and support military folks and staff on campus and certainly our students. We also focused a lot on premium seating because it helps pay the bills and it helps us move forward. But it’s all those other spaces that we created to really try and have something for everyone and we have flexibility because things change,” Sell said.

Frost Arena opened in 1974 and SDSU made sure to keep some of the history behind the 50-year old building in the new arena. In the south side concourse there is a wall formed from 3,100 square feet of the floor from Frost Arena. It is pieced together and on the wall there are 24 trophy cases and lots of pictures of events that took place in Frost Arena. There is also 5,600 linear feet of wood from the original Frost Arena bleachers.

SDSU wrestling coach Damion Hahn said the south concourse is his favorite part of the building.

“For me that’s the coolest part. Yeah, [the new arena] is brand new and it’s shiny, it’s a brand new bike and it’s cool, but there’s some nostalgia there. You talk about the entryway with the old floor and the old bleachers and how they incorporated some of the old into the new, that is cool. You’re preserving history and this place is historic,” Hahn said.

Other new features include a new video board, 43 new toilet fixtures and 12 new concessions. The main part of the video board is 11.5 feet high by 69 feet in circumference and it also includes an upper ring that is 1.5 feet high and 76 feet in circumference.

Underneath the south side seating there are three new locker rooms for volleyball and both basketball teams. Each locker room has a team lounge with a kitchen and TV area. They also have a film room and new lockers. The basketball locker rooms have a door that leads out to their practice gyms as well.

SDSU men’s basketball head coach Eric Henderson said the new locker room is one of the best perks of the new arena.

“I think with our guys, the new team room and the locker room and the proximity it is to everything else, it just flows very well together. What we are able to provide for our players student-athlete experience wise, that’s probably my favorite [part of the new arena],” Henderson said.

View the story on the Brookings Register website.