St. John Arena has been an icon for decades and while many fans have never experienced a sporting event in it most have at least been to a skull session or a dozen. In reality SJA has been used for minor sports and tournaments ever since the Mens Bball team moved to Value City Arena. SJA is oversized for the events it holds often looking empty and the is falling apart at its seems with costs to repair it in the 30-40 million dollars. Even if they did fix it for that cost it would be underutilized and too expensive for upkeep. So it will be tore down sooner rather then later. Thankfully OSU has a huge fan in the Covelli family which own a huge amount of Paneras and has recently made a 10 million dollar donation to build a new arena.
Covelli Arena will be a 4000 seat state of the art arena that will be home to seven olympic sports like gymnastics, wrestling, fencing, and volleyball. It also will occasionally host womens Bball games and high school tournaments. You can view the entire article from the Columbus Dispatch here.
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