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GREENSBORO — Sports fans, start drooling.

Four years after the state set aside $2 million to locate an ACC Hall of Champions in Greensboro, coliseum leaders are ready to start planning.

The Greensboro City Council voted to release the money this month. The museum, theater and meeting space
will be built at the Coliseum Special Events Center.

The first phase of the estimated $20 million museum project — which will include historical information and donated memorabilia — should be finished in time for the men’s ACC basketball tournament at the coliseum in 2011.
 

In the future, an estimated $12 million worth of interactive and historical exhibits will be added. Supporters hope the initial investment will be enough to whet state officials’ appetites to spend more on the facility.

“The ACC Hall of Champions ... has enormous potential for our community,” said Tim Rice, chairman of the War Memorial Commission. “We adopted the name of Tournament Town, and we have really become Tournament Town.”

Coliseum supporters have been angling for money to renovate or upgrade the complex for years — either by fixing what they have, like the aging auditorium, or adding things, like a competitive swim facility.

City leaders asked the General Assembly to kick in money for the ACC project in 2005. Coliseum managers originally planned to put the hall in the former Canada Dry bottling facility, adjacent to the coliseum property on High Point Road.

The first phase of the project, in an old exhibit and meeting space, will include 8,100 square feet of renovated space, Coliseum Director Matt Brown said. It will hold a 200-seat theater and displays that illustrate the history of the ACC. It will include memorabilia such as the first and last trophies won in the ACC by former Tar Heels coach Dean Smith.

And although Greensboro has been host to the men’s and women’s ACC basketball tournaments, the museum will include the history of all ACC sports.

The outside of the Coliseum Special Events Center also will get a facelift to highlight the museum within. It will face High Point Road, which supporters and City Council members say will reap the benefit of more traffic.

“We’re getting momentum to have this big economic generator we have down there at the coliseum,” Rice said.

Coliseum supporters have high hopes for the hall. Brown said it could draw 77,000 people annually, with the busiest time being tournament season.

Admission to the museum will be free during the first phase and up to $7 as more exhibits are added.

Brown pledged that no city money would be used to develop or run the hall. He plans to run the facility with volunteers.

“We see this as a legitimate statewide tourist destination. It’s an attraction,” Brown said. “That is why I am adamant that it should be funded 100 percent by the state of North Carolina.”

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com