The Honda Center won’t be left behind as the 100-acre OCVibe gets built around it, with a massive renovation for the arena announced Tuesday, April 29.

The Samueli family’s OC Sports & Entertainment says it will be making a $1 billion investment into renovating the Honda Center, bringing a refresh to its food and beverage offerings, luxury areas and building a new glass entrance on the arena’s south side that will be a home for watch parties and future events.

Called Honda Center Encore, the renovation will bring new life to the city-owned arena built in the early 1990s, said Bill Foltz, CEO of OC Sports & Entertainment, the developers behind OCVibe, and “feel like this is a new building.”

“Honda Center Encore is turning Honda Center into a state-of-the-art venue from where we are today, which is still a great venue, but it’s a 1993 vintage building,” Foltz said. “And so we’re bringing it into the 21st century so that it runs in parallel with what we’re doing with OCVibe.”

The Samueli family, who own the Ducks and whose company operates the Honda Center for the city, will privately fund the revamp.

The Honda Center is the anchor building for the 100-acre OCVibe entertainment district under construction, which will bring dozens more restaurants, new performance venues, outdoor spaces, apartments and a hotel to create what the developers have called Orange County’s new downtown.

The revamp to the Honda Center, its planners said, will begin this summer and be ready in 2027, ahead of the 2028 Olympics when the Honda Center is set to host indoor volleyball.

Honda Center Encore represents a total of $1 billion investment, of which about $500 million is new spending, Foltz said. New parking structures are already under construction — they will serve all of OCVibe.

The arena’s food and beverage spaces will get a complete refresh, focused on adding new cuisines, menus and about 30% more capacity to keep lines short, said Chief Operating Officer Morell Marean.

“There’s something for every fan, every concertgoer within what we are doing,” Marean said. “From this vibrant new 200-level entry and a renovation of all our food and beverage outlets, two new all-inclusive premium clubs on the second level of the arena and a very cool luxurious bar that will feel a lot like your favorite hotel bar.”

The changes to food and beverage offerings will start to roll out later this year and trickle in over the coming two years, Marean said. They will unveil roughly 10 new concepts throughout the arena.

Three concessions on the arena’s main level will undergo renovations this summer, and four corner concessions on the 400 level will open by the end of the year.

A new five-story glass structure will be built at the Honda Center’s south entrance and will have a large thin-film LED display. The vision, Marean said, is for people to gather outside the entrance during Ducks games or for it to be a gathering spot for the county during major celebrations.

The new entrance is meant to merge the two distinct designs of the Honda Center and ARTIC, Marean said. The Honda Center’s design is more classical and geometrically rectilinear, Marean said, while ARTIC on the opposite side of Katella Avenue is transparent and “curvaceous.” The new entrance is meant to bring transparency to the Honda Center.

Inside the structure, the Honda Center’s first escalators for guests will be built. Marean said the Honda Center is one of the few, if not only, NHL arenas without escalators. A new Ducks-themed gastropub will open at the south entrance as well.

The arena’s 68 luxury suites will all be renovated and opera box suites on the main concourse will be added. The opera box suites are smaller, giving a new price point for people who want a premium experience at games or concerts, Foltz said.

An industry first coming to the Honda Center will be the new parking garages opening this year not requiring drivers to stop and scan QR codes to park. The garages are designed to get guests in and out quickly, and the price of parking will be folded into ticket costs.

“You’ll never stop until you get into your parking space,” Foltz said. “We think that’s going to save our fans 20 to 30 minutes.”

The first two garages will open in October and a third garage that will be connected to the Honda Center on three levels will open in summer 2026. The garages expand the stadium’s parking capacity by 60%, according to a news release.

Marean said there were early discussions about building a new arena, but they settled on renovations to modernize the Honda Center.

“We felt strongly that the Honda Center has great bones. It’s a great building,” Marean said.

“There is not a bad seat in the house and there was so much that we could do simply by enhancing what we have today,” Marean said. “The building has been immaculately maintained and is in terrific condition from an infrastructure standpoint. The floors are lined with Italian marble. It’s an asset that frankly we wanted to both respect and enhance.”

The renovation will protect key elements of the Honda Center, including those marble floors and its arches, but Foltz said with everything else being built at OCVibe, “We just didn’t think you could go from 2025 to 1993” when stepping inside the arena.

Some of the changes won’t be so obvious to guests. Foltz said they are spending more than $60 million to upgrade the underground loading area to allow for 25 different loading docks — up from four — to make it more artist and roadie-friendly.

The arena’s stage will also be moved back to increase capacity by up to 1,000 seats for shows. The rafters above will be able to handle more weight, Foltz said, to accommodate the “massive sets that come with shows today.”

“So things like that are major changes to us,” Foltz said. “The orchestration, the complexity of taking 25 semis and unloading them in four loading docks in and out and in and out, versus just having them all pull in and then you’re done until you’re ready to load them all up, that’s massive to today’s touring groups. That $60 million piece of it alone, is a major enticement for those folks to come here.”

The renovation will need to go through city planning, Foltz said. The rest of OCVibe is a $4 billion development that has already been approved.

At completion, OCVibe will have four performance venues, including the Honda Center, more than two dozen restaurants and bars, two hotels, around 2,000 apartment homes and new green space surrounding it all.