‘Dramatic’ La Salle basketball renovation project is nearing its completion. Here’s a look inside.

La Salle athletic director Ashwin Puri acknowledged a few times during a recent tour of his school’s new basketball arena that he might’ve been a little dramatic in his excitement and description of the new John Glaser Arena.

But it’s hard to overstate the difference between now and when the last basketball game was played there, on March 2. The building’s entrance looks the same, and so does the path up the stairs to the third-floor arena that sits on top of the second-floor pool inside TruMark Financial Center on the Olney campus. Open the swinging doors, though, and that’s where the fun begins.

It’s still an active construction zone with warning signs not to step onto the freshly lacquered new basketball floor, but there are a few dramatic changes that hit you right away. First, the court is oriented horizontally when you walk in as opposed to entering the court from the baseline. Then there’s the lighting; the new LED lights bringing to life the new home of the Explorers and promising not to coat every future picture in the old, worn-out yellow that Tom Gola Arena seemed to glaze everything in. The air-conditioning blasts, too.

Puri came to La Salle via Villanova, but he wasn’t there when Finneran Pavilion was being renovated. His previous stops, though, featured plenty of building transformations. He was at the University of California for restoration projects, with the New York Jets when MetLife Stadium opened, and consulted in the NBA league office on renovations and build-outs.

“This is the most dramatic old-to-new rebuild that I’ve been a part of,” Puri said. “I like checking boxes. I like things being linear. I just like to get [stuff] done.”

He sounded at times like a well-educated kid in a candy store moving around the new building and pointing out its new features.

“This is fun because this matters to so many people,” Puri said. “I don’t know all the people that care about this yet and I can’t wait to see them when they come in for the first time.”

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Among the many new features inside the new gym is the hanging scoreboard (which was still covered) and the high-performing sound system. A luxury suite named for the late John Glaser, a 1962 La Salle graduate, will be positioned at half court. In addition to the LED lighting, RBG lights will allow for the arena to be lit in any color on the spectrum and enable logos to be projected on the court.

New Spalding NBA baskets sat inside the first-floor entrance of the gym, waiting to be brought up the freight elevator to their new home on the third floor, so the days of the backboard hanging from the ceiling are gone. So are the days of sitting on bleachers. One of Glaser’s visions, Puri said, was for every seat in the new arena to have a chair back. Glaser Arena will join Temple’s Liacouras Center as the only Big 5 arenas without bleacher seats.

However, there are fewer total seats than the old place, which seated around 3,400 people. Glaser Arena will house about 3,000 in a 360-degree bowl that looks much more Division I than high school gym.

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The unfinished parts also include new locker rooms, plus a bar that will be the first touchpoint for fans as they make their way up the stairs. A donor recognition wall and new murals are also on the docket.

The biggest challenge during this five-plus months of transition, Puri said, has been the timeline. The season ended in early March and then came the craziness of the transfer portal and NIL and the reshaping of the rosters that will call the gym home. Puri credited the partners and vendors on the project with keeping things in order.

When Puri was hired in June 2023, this renovation immediately became his top task. La Salle president Dan Allen showed him an old rendering — there was no official design yet — and the last 14 months have been about putting it all together and making it happen.

The renovation will eventually include updates to the lobby and mezzanine areas before the basketball season starts. In total, the project will cost more than $12 million, according to sources, and Glaser’s initial gift in 2013 covered more than half of the cost. The hope is that it will be more than a gym for La Salle basketball. Puri wants to bring other basketball events to campus and thinks it could be a good venue for comedy shows.

The athletic director has appeared on camera in multiple social media posts throughout the summer, keeping the La Salle community apprised of the latest happenings.

“It’s just fun,” Puri said. Plus, La Salle is trying to tell a story about change.

It’s been faced with declining enrollments — down 28% since 2019 in overall headcount — and is trying to combat its downturn by adding sports and doubling down on school spirit. That includes a new band, which will conveniently be positioned near the visiting team’s bench.

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The new John Glaser Arena, Puri said, could be the catalyst of change.

“This is a beacon of light for the entire campus,” he said. “I hate to be all dramatic, but it really is. This is a start of our transformation as a university. That’s what’s most exciting.”