Populous Chosen to Design Quebec City Arena

The City of Quebec has selected a joint venture of Populous and two Quebec City architecture firms to design a new $400 million multipurpose arena.  In addition to serving the community as an attractive venue for concerts and family shows the arena is intended to boost the City’s desire to reacquire a National Hockey League franchise.  The NHL Nordiques left Quebec City in 1995 to become the Colorado Avalanche.

In addition to Populous the design team consists of ABCP Architecture and GLCRM & Associates of Quebec City, SNC-Lavalin, Thornton Tomasetti and M-E Engineers.  The City also announced the selection of Genivar, Inc as project manager.

“Quebec City is a special place with rich tradition and history with the NHL,” said Populous Senior Principal Rick Martin, “We’re determined to design a building that uniquely reflects their culture and provides a great multipurpose arena experience.”

The design process for the multipurpose arena will begin immediately in anticipation of an opening in mid-2015.  The facility will meet all contemporary requirements and specifications for a modern concert venue as well as all National Hockey League standards.

The seating capacity of the arena is expected to be 18,000 with the numbers of premium seats, suites and auxiliary entertainment and dining features to be refined during the programming phase this fall.  The site for the new arena is nearby the existing Pepsi Coliseum on the grounds of ExpoCite.

“Populous is appreciative of the opportunity to participate in the design of six of the most recent seven major new arenas in North America, including the three most recent NHL venues in Pittsburgh, Newark and Glendale, Arizona,” Martin added. “Today’s multipurpose arenas offer many intricacies and complex challenges but we’re confident that our experienced design team will provide Quebec City residents with a high performance arena that will be a great source of community pride.”

Other recent major arena projects for Populous are CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center, Amway Center in Orlando, Newark’s Prudential Center, Jobing.com arena in Glendale and Sprint Center in Kansas City where Populous served as architect of record for the Downtown Arena Design Team.

Overall, Populous has designed multiple arenas that host nearly 20 NHL and NBA franchises.

For further information please contact:
Gina Stingley at Populous
Telephone: 816 329 4409
Email media@populous.com