The Richmond Arena was a multipurpose indoor sports facility located in and owned by the city of Richmond, Virginia. It was located south of

Parker Field Parker Field is a 2,500-seat baseball stadium in the northwest United States, located in Yakima, Washington. Opened in 1937 for the Yakima Pippins of the Western International League, it hosted various professional and amateur teams in the ...

, between Boulevard and Hermitage Road. The barrel-vaulted arena originally was opened in 1908 as an exhibition hall and the administrative offices of the

State Fair of Virginia The State Fair of Virginia is a state fair held annually at the end of September at The Meadow Event Park in Doswell, Virginia, Doswell, Virginia. Through 2008, the fair was held at the Richmond International Raceway, Richmond Raceway Complex, ...

, which was originally held at the location. After World War II, however, the State Fair moved and the hall, which had been used as a motor pool garage for the Army during the war, was turned over to the city and used as a city garage. By this time, the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

was looking for an arena to host its basketball program. No other arena in the city held more than 2,000 spectators, and the University wished for a larger venue. It was the idea of Clyde Ratcliffe, son of the former head of the State Fair, to turn the exhibition hall into an arena. The first sporting event held in the hall was a

Richmond Spiders men's basketball The Richmond Spiders men's basketball team represents the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia and currently competes in the Atlantic 10 Conference. The team plays its home games at the Robins Center. The team last played in the NCAA D ...

game against the

VMI Keydets The VMI Keydets are the athletic teams that represent the Virginia Military Institute. All sports participate in the NCAA Division I, and all but three compete in the Southern Conference (the exceptions being men's and women's swimming and diving ...

. It served as the site of

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

games for the Spiders from 1954 through 1971, and was a "regional" home of the

Virginia Squires The Virginia Squires were a basketball team based in Norfolk, Virginia, and playing in several other Virginia cities. They were members of the American Basketball Association from 1970 to 1976. The team originated in 1967 as the Oakland Oaks, ...

of the American Basketball Association during their first year in the Commonwealth. It also served as the site of the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly k ...

men's basketball championship tournament from 1955 through 1963. In addition to basketball, the 5,152-seat arena also played host to numerous exhibitions, concerts and

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

and

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

events. The largest crowd to ever see an event in the building was 6,022 for a Harlem Globetrotters game in 1955. The building, which had no insulation or cooling system, fell out of popular use after the opening of the much larger

Richmond Coliseum Richmond Coliseum is a defunct arena located in downtown Richmond, Virginia, with a capacity of 13,500 that was most often used for various large concerts. The arena opened in 1971 and the region is looking to replace the aging facility with a la ...

in 1971. The building still held wrestling matches until 1977, when a promoter change led to wrestling matches being moved to the Coliseum. After a

Hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that o ...

automobile sale in 1986, the arena finally closed. It remained shuttered and unused until being demolished in 1997. The land was given to

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virginia ...

, and in 1999

Sports Backers Stadium Sports Backers Stadium is a 3,250-seat stadium in Richmond, Virginia. The facility was opened in 1999. Sports Backers Stadium is used throughout the year by various parties including the soccer and college athletics teams from Virginia Commonwea ...

was built on its site. One of the Arena's vice-presidents, E. Claiborne Robins, would lend his name to the eventual on-campus arena of the Spiders as a benefactor.

References

Arena Lost: The Life and Times of the Richmond Arena
MidAtlanticGateway.com, retrieved February 7, 2015. American Basketball Association venues Basketball venues in Virginia Indoor arenas in Virginia Sports venues in Richmond, Virginia Defunct college basketball venues in the United States Virginia Squires Defunct indoor arenas in the United States Defunct basketball venues in the United States Richmond Spiders basketball Defunct sports venues in Virginia Sports venues completed in 1908 1908 establishments in Virginia 1986 disestablishments in Virginia Sports venues demolished in 1997 {{Virginia-sports-venue-stub