NC legislature approves $35 million for infrastructure around Lenovo Center
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- State lawmakers advanced $35M for infrastructure near the Lenovo Center arena.
- Funding supports access upgrades, replacing a tax abatement repayment plan.
- Development includes a $1.2B multiuse project and major arena renovations.
The impending development of the 80 vacant acres around the Lenovo Center got a boost from the legislature on Tuesday when the General Assembly passed a bill allocating $35 million in state funds for infrastructure improvement around the arena.
The original agreements between the Centennial Authority, which owns and oversees the arena, and Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon specified that the Hurricanes would be responsible for desperately needed access upgrades to the property, primarily from Wade Avenue and Edwards Mill Road, with their expenses to be repaid by the state over time through a continued tax abatement.
The legislation, one of several items in a small budget bill passed by the Senate on Monday, House Bill 358, is a more straightforward funding arrangement that also takes into account an increase in expected costs from the original estimate of $25 million to the current $35 million.
The House passed the bill on Tuesday 103-6, with significant bipartisan support.
It now goes to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein to sign, veto or let become law without his signature within 10 days.
“The Authority shall disburse the funds allocated to a qualifying entity for costs incurred for public infrastructure improvements on, adjacent to, or supporting a regional entertainment and sports arena owned by the Authority,” the bill reads.
Sen. Ralph Hise, a Spruce Pine Republican and one of the top Senate budget writers, told lawmakers during a committee meeting on Monday that one of the mini budget bills includes “a number of economic development incentives that are in now, a part of this bill: the Centennial Authority public infrastructure improvements around the Lenovo Center arena area, which is state-owned land.”
The bill passed the Senate unanimously, 47-0. There was no discussion about the Lenovo project beyond Hise introducing the bill. It was one of several small budget bills that passed the Senate on Monday evening, its only planned voting session of the week.
Likewise in the House, there was no debate on the bill.
Mini budget bills in play
Senators moved a series of spending bills Monday — smaller, “mini-budget” bills rather than the comprehensive state budget bill that the General Assembly is nearly three months late in passing.
Hise said that while he hopes the House will take up the measures, he did not yet know if or when it would. The House took up just one of the Senate’s mini budget bills, the one with the Lenovo funding, during a session on Tuesday.
Centennial Authority chairman Philip Isley declined to comment Monday. Efforts to reach Hurricanes CEO Brian Fork were not immediately successful. Fork is the former chief of staff for Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican.
The News & Observer asked Berger after the Senate vote on Monday night about the Lenovo provision.
“It’s my understanding that there are some transportation issues that need to be addressed as a result of some of the development that’s been authorized by the Centennial Authority, and that’s what that provision deals with,” he said.
The Hurricanes, in August 2023, reached an agreement with the authority to develop surface parking lots around the arena into a multiuse development currently valued at $1.2 billion, as part of a larger deal to allocate $300 million in tourism-tax funds to renovate the arena and extend the team’s lease through 2044, among other provisions.
Major construction coming this fall
The first phase of construction is scheduled to begin this fall, at the conclusion of N.C. State’s football season, with two parking decks to the southeast of the arena. A 4,000-seat music venue is also slated to be part of the initial work. A Dallas company affiliated with Dundon, Pacific Elm Properties, is leading the development.
Renovations to the 26-year-old arena began this spring, during the NHL playoffs, with work to relocate and replace air-handling units, and has continued through the summer with work on new luxury spaces below the stands at the south end of the arena and a new bar overlooking the arena floor on the northeast corner of the upper level. More extensive work on the main concourse, club level, loading docks and building exterior is scheduled to continue over the next two summers.
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 3:36 PM.
