The Wachovia Center is an indoor arena located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is formerly known as the CoreStates Center and the First Union Center. The Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL and the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA use this venue as their home arena.
The place of venue was selected which was once the site of John F.Kennedy Stadium. The arena was completed in 1996 at a cost of $206 million. The private financers contributed a lot of money for the construction of this arena. The expenditures of the local infrastructure were met by the city and state.
The building of Wachovia Center lies at the southeast corner of the South Philadelphia sports complex, which includes Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Park, and the arena's predecessor, The Spectrum.
Officially, the arena has capacity of 21,600 seats for basketball and 19,519 seats for hockey. the total paid capaciy is actually somewhat greater with the additional standing room admissions available in suites for purchase by their lease holders.
The Wachovia Center has 126 luxury suites and 1,880 club seats. The arena was originally named for CoreStates Bank. The bank agreed to pay $40 million over 21 years for the naming rights, with additional terms to be settled later for an additional eight year period at the end of the contract. The naming rights were taken by First Union Bank in a merger in 1998 and then by Wachovia Bank in a 2003 merger with First Union.
Philadelphians affectionately referred to this arena as the “F.U.Center” under the First Union name. This led to the alteration of the name and the name was considered, the "First Union National Center." However, the new name could not satisfy the fans and athletes who played in the facility.
Because of the 2004-05 NHL lockout, and later in the season, the unavailability of ice at the Wachovia Spectrum caused by other events at that venue. The Flyers' American Hockey League affiliate, the Philadelphia Phantoms were able to play selected games in the arena. These included the entire 2004-05 Phantoms playoff schedule which included a record 20,103 in the Calder Cup clinching Game 4. Same was repeated for the first two games of the 2005-06 season.
The Center also set a record for the highest attendance for a college basketball game in the state of Pennsylvania in February 2006. In this game, 4th-ranked Villanova hosted and defeated top-ranked UConn.
The popular rock band Guns N' Roses were schedule to perform in the building on their Chinese Democracy Tour on December 6, 2002. The opening bands (CKY, Mixmaster Mike) went on to perform as usual, but the main act, Guns n' Roses, never showed up fusing a riot in the arena. Later on, the public announcer of the building cited the sickness of one of the band member as the main reason of their absence on the stage.
Billy Joel has the honor of setting a complex record in 2006, for most sellouts at the Wachovia/First Union/CoreStates Center - 17, for a Philadelphia total of 46. Only the Grateful Dead have sold out more shows at the complex (55, all at the Spectrum)
On the tenth anniversary of the center, some renovations were made in the Center. Comcast-Spectacor made an announcement of installing a new center-hung scoreboard to replace the original one on August 1, 2006. ANC Sports is manufacturer of the new scoreboard. It is similar to other scoreboards in new NBA arenas such as FedExForum. An additional linear LED display lining the entire arena will also be installed between the suite and mezzanine levels. Other renovations include upgrading the suites with more flat screen HDTV's, as well as changing ticket providers from Ticketmaster to New Era Tickets which is owned by Comcast-Spectator.
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