‘A once-in-100-year opportunity’: Ground broken on $515M Kalamazoo Event Center

KALAMAZOO, MI — Bill Johnston called the $515 million Kalamazoo Event Center a “once-in-a-100-year opportunity.”

“For over 20 years, we have been talking about the potential of doing what we are doing now,” said Johnston at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new downtown facility on Friday, Sept. 26.

“Twenty years ago, we were talking about building an arena. But we are not talking about just building an arena now,” he said. “We are building a true community event center, an athletic performance center that happens to have an arena and 30,000 square feet of floor space that will be used by the community.”

The state-of-the-art facility at 411 W. Kalamazoo Ave. will be the new home to Western Michigan University’s men’s and women’s basketball programs, the university’s national champio