Philips Arena
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The Philips Arena is a indoor arena in Atlanta, Georgia. Completed in 1999 at a cost of $213.5 million, it is home to the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA, the Atlanta Thrashers of the NHL and Arena Football League's Georgia Force. The arena seats 20,300 for basketball and 18,750 for ice hockey. It includes 96 luxury suites and 2,100 club seats.
The arena was laid out in a rather unusual manner, with the club seats and luxury boxes aligned solely along one side of the playing surface, and the general admission seating along the other three sides. This was done so as to be able to bring the bulk of the seats closer to the playing surface while still making available a sufficient number of revenue-raising club seats and lodges.
The arena is sponsored by and named for Philips Electronics and therefore contains a large number of television screens made by Philips. On the exterior, angled steel columns supporting the roof facing downtown spell out "ATLANTA" and the side facing Centennial Olympic Park spells out "CNN."
Philips Arena occupies the site of the Omni Coliseum, Atlanta's former large sports arena that was demolished in 1997. The arena adjoins the CNN Center.