Market Square Arena was a multipurpose indoor arena located at 300 East Market Street in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Opened on September 15, 1974, at a construction cost of roughly $23 million, it seated 16,530 fans for basketball (up to 18,178 with festival seating) and ranked as the fifth-largest sports arena in the United States on the day it first opened its doors.
Over 25 years, it served as home to the Indiana Pacers through both their ABA and NBA eras, watched a teenage Wayne Gretzky take his first professional strides on hockey ice, witnessed Michael Jordan’s celebrated 1995 comeback game, and — above all — hosted Elvis Presley’s final concert on June 26, 1977. Demolished by controlled implosion on July 8, 2001, Market Square Arena left behind a legacy that few arenas anywhere can match.
Quick Answer
Market Square Arena was located at 300 East Market Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46204. It held 16,530 fans for basketball (maximum 18,178 with festival seating), opened September 15, 1974, closed after the Pacers’ final game there on October 23, 1999, and was demolished by controlled implosion at 7:00 a.m. on July 8, 2001. It is best remembered as the longtime home of the Indiana Pacers and the site of Elvis Presley’s final concert in 1977. The site is now occupied by the 360 Market Square apartment tower and the Cummins Indianapolis Distribution Headquarters.
Location: Where Was Market Square Arena?
Market Square Arena stood at 300 East Market Street in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana — a few blocks east of Monument Circle and adjacent to the historic Indianapolis City Market, from which the arena took its name. One of the building’s most unusual structural features was its elevated playing floor, which literally spanned Market Street, supported by twin parking garages on either side of the road below.
The arena’s convex space-frame roof had a 364-foot clear span and rose 150 feet from floor to ceiling; built by the American Bridge Division of U.S. Steel, it was among the largest Swedler domes ever constructed at the time.
Capacity: How Many People Did Market Square Arena Hold?
Market Square Arena’s standard seating capacity was 16,530 for NBA basketball and 15,993 for ice hockey. When the floor was opened for festival (general admission) seating, the arena could accommodate up to 18,178 people — the approximate crowd size for Elvis Presley’s final concert in June 1977.
On the day it opened in September 1974, the arena was the fifth-largest sports venue in the United States, a reflection of both Indianapolis’s ambition and the building’s architectural scale. Its capacity remained competitive throughout its operational life, comfortably hosting NCAA tournaments, Pan American Games competition, and sold-out Pacers playoff games — though by the late 1990s the fixed bowl and lack of luxury suites made it obsolete next to newer NBA arenas.
History and Architecture
The arena’s design concept originated with Ball State University architecture students Joseph Mynhier and Terry Pastorino in 1970, as part of a broader push to revitalize downtown Indianapolis and give the Indiana Pacers a permanent home. Four architecture firms, including Kennedy, Brown & Trueblood and McGuire & Shook Corporation, collaborated to translate that student concept into the brutalist, early post-modernist structure.
Ground broke in October 1971, and Huber, Hunt & Nichols served as general contractor across nearly three years of construction, at a total cost of about $23.5 million (roughly $150 million in today’s dollars). The first event held inside was a Glen Campbell concert on opening night, September 15, 1974. From there, the venue quickly became one of the busiest arenas in the Midwest, mixing major sports with touring concerts, circuses, evangelists, and community events.
Tenants: The Pacers, the Racers, and More
The Indiana Pacers were the anchor tenant from the very beginning, continuing play from their American Basketball Association days through their entry into the NBA in 1976 and all the way through the 1998–99 season; the team’s final game at Market Square Arena was played on October 23, 1999. The Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association shared the building from 1974 until the franchise folded in December 1978.
The Indianapolis Checkers also called the arena home in two separate stints — first in the Central Hockey League from 1979 to 1981, then again in the International Hockey League from 1985 to 1987. Major events punctuated the arena’s calendar throughout its life, including the 1980 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four and the basketball competition at the 1987 Pan American Games, both of which brought national and international attention to Indianapolis.
Legendary Moments at Market Square Arena
Wayne Gretzky made his professional hockey debut at Market Square Arena in 1978 as a 17-year-old with the Indianapolis Racers. He played only eight games on that ice before the struggling franchise sold his contract to the Edmonton Oilers — but those first professional appearances, in downtown Indianapolis, mark the opening chapter of the greatest career in hockey history.
On June 26, 1977, Elvis Presley performed the last concert of his life at Market Square Arena before a crowd of roughly 18,000 fans, telling the audience, “This is my last stop on the tour. I’m going home to Memphis and rest a couple months.” He died at Graceland seven weeks later, on August 16, 1977, cementing that Indianapolis show as one of the most significant nights in rock-and-roll history.
Led Zeppelin played the arena on April 17, 1977, and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performed there on March 5, 1981 (during The River Tour) and again on January 7, 1985. On March 19, 1995, Michael Jordan made his celebrated return from retirement at Market Square Arena, scoring 19 points as the Bulls fell to the Pacers 103-96 in overtime — one of the most-watched regular-season games in NBA history to that point.
When and How Was Market Square Arena Demolished?
Market Square Arena closed after the Pacers moved into Conseco Fieldhouse in 1999, and the city moved to clear the site for redevelopment. In June 2001, crews from Controlled Demolition, Inc., of Phoenix, Maryland, spent weeks cutting away the arena’s distinctive roof and wiring roughly 800 pounds of explosives into the structure’s support columns.
At precisely 7:00 a.m. on July 8, 2001, a series of blasting caps triggered a chain-reaction detonation: one large charge collapsed the roof dome, and a second severed the steel support ring around the building. The entire 180-foot-tall structure came down in about 12 seconds, watched by thousands of spectators who gathered in downtown Indianapolis for one last look at the arena. There were no major injuries, and the implosion cleared the way for the site’s redevelopment over the following decade and a half.
The Site Today: What Replaced Market Square Arena?
The former Market Square Arena footprint sat largely vacant for over a decade after the 2001 implosion before redevelopment finally broke ground in 2015. Today, the northern half of the block is occupied by 360 Market Square, a 27-story apartment tower with roughly 290 residential units, a 40,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market (opened March 2018), and a 525-space parking garage.
The southern half of the site holds the Cummins Indianapolis Distribution Headquarters, a nine-story office building that opened in January 2017. Together, the two projects transformed the old arena block into one of downtown Indianapolis’s more active mixed-use corners, just steps from the City Market and Monument Circle.
Market Square Arena Indianapolis FAQs
When was Market Square Arena demolished?
Market Square Arena was demolished by controlled implosion at 7:00 a.m. on July 8, 2001. Crews from Controlled Demolition, Inc. wired roughly 800 pounds of explosives into the structure, and the arena came down in about 12 seconds.
Where was Market Square Arena located?
It stood at 300 East Market Street in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, near the Indianapolis City Market and a few blocks east of Monument Circle.
How many people did Market Square Arena hold?
It seated 16,530 for NBA basketball and 15,993 for hockey, with a maximum capacity of 18,178 when the floor was opened for festival seating.
What replaced Market Square Arena?
The site is now occupied by 360 Market Square, a 27-story apartment tower with a Whole Foods Market, and the Cummins Indianapolis Distribution Headquarters office building.
What was Market Square Arena’s most famous event?
Elvis Presley’s final concert, performed there on June 26, 1977, less than two months before his death, is generally considered the arena’s most historically significant event.
Why did the Indiana Pacers leave Market Square Arena?
By the late 1990s the arena’s fixed seating bowl and lack of luxury suites made it uncompetitive with newer NBA venues, so the Pacers moved into Conseco Fieldhouse (now Gainbridge Fieldhouse) for the 1999–2000 season.
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